New Camera $400 Budget

J

JessAlba452

Gawd
Joined
Sep 25, 2004
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754
I've finally saved up enough cash to get a fairly decent camera. I spent a few hours looking at review sites the best that I found was Digital Camera Resource. But I still can't pick!

What I would be using it for is taking out door shots at night and dusk/sunset. Also indoor shots of computer close ups since I mod and would like the camera to capture all the details.

What I'm looking for is....

1: Best optical zoom higher than 3x
2: Close macros shots that are bright
3: Little to no noise/grainy-ness
4: Good night shots taking in a lot of light (no purple fringes)
5: Meets the budget of $400 or less.
6: Manual focus.

Cameras that I have been looking at are the Fuji s5100, and Minolta Dimage Z2. I'm wondering if theres any better ones out there. :)

Thanks in advance!
 
Hey it's another person from the ATL! :D I've looked into that one...forgot one thing on my list. Manual Focus. Oh and yep I've checked out that site, a friend of mine just told me about it .
 
JessAlba452 said:
Hey it's another person from the ATL! :D I've looked into that one...forgot one thing on my list. Manual zoom. Oh and yep I've checked out that site, a friend of mine just told me about it .
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A95 has manual zoom
its good stuff
i like my manual zoom with the A80

ATL represent ...
well atleast for two more days
then Athens represnet !
*throws gang signs*
 
Oh and I just used the link to the buying chart you gave me. LoL it gave me the same choices I listed. Except it gave all the Dimage series. So I'm still stuck on the Fuji s5100 and Dimage Z2. :eek: So weird lol.

I'm near choosing a Dimage Z2 for my next camera since it's got 10x optical zoom and longer exposure which helps for night shots.
 
if you arent going for the awesome a95 then i guess minolta is a bit better

im not sure how well it does with noise ... and how much noise removal it does after a long exposure

i always recomend nikons and canons since they are fantastic ... i dont know anyone with a minolta cam ...

i suggest you read the reviews on dpreview and steve's digicams ...
 
I've been looking for a while. At first I wanted to get a Digital Rebel. I think I'll stick with that choice and just wait a while to save up around $1000. So then there'll be enough to buy a larger CF card, and other acessories other than a new lense. Also the price of the Rebel is going down along with a $100 rebate. Hopefully I'll have one in my hands soon enough! :D
 
JessAlba452 said:
I've been looking for a while. At first I wanted to get a Digital Rebel. I think I'll stick with that choice and just wait a while to save up around $1000. So then there'll be enough to buy a larger CF card, and other acessories other than a new lense. Also the price of the Rebel is going down along with a $100 rebate. Hopefully I'll have one in my hands soon enough! :D
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yeah you can get the rebel for sooooo cheap ... its not that great of a build but it makes fantastic shots ...
you can get it now for about 700 bucks after the rebate


so what will you end up getting ?
 
Yep! And $700 is an awesome price considering they used to go for $1000 or so. :D So my choice is the Digital Rebel since I'm a beginner.
 
JessAlba452 said:
Yep! And $700 is an awesome price considering they used to go for $1000 or so. :D So my choice is the Digital Rebel since I'm a beginner.
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not bad ... you'll be happy with it ...
i was suprised at the quality of shots i got with it ...
but nothing compares to my new 20D
 
Yeppers, I hope its a good camera! A 20D sounds reallly nice!

Any idea what would be a good sized CF card for the Rebel? I'm thinking either 512Mb or 1Gb. Never owned anything higher than 2Mp before so I have a feeling its going to eat up those CF cards. :D
 
JessAlba452 said:
Yeppers, I hope its a good camera! A 20D sounds reallly nice!

Any idea what would be a good sized CF card for the Rebel? I'm thinking either 512Mb or 1Gb. Never owned anything higher than 2Mp before so I have a feeling its going to eat up those CF cards. :D
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you are going to shoot in jpg mode at the heigest quality ... so that will give you like 300 shots on a 1GB card or so
if you intend to shoot in raw get a 2GB san disk ultra 2
otherwise any 1GB CF card will work
dont worry about the speed... you really don't need it unless you need to do some major shooting action where you need a fast write speed

i use a kingston 1gb card with my 20D .... im looking to upgrade to a 2GB 40x to 60X card .... but thats when i get some money ..
ehhe
 
Awesome! :) Thanks for the great advice! I'll pick up a 2Gb for RAW pictures when I get the Rebel.
 
Ah I broke down and bought myself a camera!

Panasonic DMC ZF15

No need for a hotshoe since I'll be doing mostly daylight photos if outside and it was in my price range. :D Yippiee!
 
Good choice. You'll love the zoom.

I have the older version of that camera, the FZ10. The only differences are that mine has a hot shoe, a weaker built in flash and the "Venus Engine 1". You should be quite happy with it.

Tim
 
JessAlba452 said:
Ah I broke down and bought myself a camera!

Panasonic DMC ZF15

No need for a hotshoe since I'll be doing mostly daylight photos if outside and it was in my price range. :D Yippiee!
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Hells yeah! Excellent choice!

I got myself an FZ20 last month

I <3 my FZ20
 
:D Omg this camera is SWEET! This is my first digital camera since the other one I used was my friends. It only had 4x digital zoom and the ability to turn the flash on or off. There are so many features! :eek: It's going to be really hard to learn all of this so hopefully I'll be sticking around the Photography forum to learn more about how to take pictures.
 
JessAlba452 said:
:D Omg this camera is SWEET! This is my first digital camera since the other one I used was my friends. It only had 4x digital zoom and the ability to turn the flash on or off. There are so many features! :eek: It's going to be really hard to learn all of this so hopefully I'll be sticking around the Photography forum to learn more about how to take pictures.
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That cam makes it easy to learn :D
 
Whoa! :eek: That is what I call macro! lol There is so much stuff I have to learn omg....and lenses / filters too! Anyone have a website that gives you a rundown of lenses, what they do, and how they're used?

Like UV filter, Polarizing Filter, Telephoto Lense, Wide angle lense...all of those. :)
 
JessAlba452 said:
Whoa! :eek: That is what I call macro! lol There is so much stuff I have to learn omg....and lenses / filters too! Anyone have a website that gives you a rundown of lenses, what they do, and how they're used?

Like UV filter, Polarizing Filter, Telephoto Lense, Wide angle lense...all of those. :)
Click to expand...


You should google the basics of digital photography. I don't know of a website that has all that. There are forums like this one that are much more active..

http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/

They have a LOT of information and a lot of good pictures.
 
JessAlba452 said:
Checking it out right now! Thank you for the link :D
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No Problemo. That forum is where I found info on that super macro converter of doom. It shall be mine.. oh yes, it shall be mine!
 
I just had a little fun with the camera using the macro setting. Oh and of course trusty photoshop. I didn't scale down the image much which is why you can see noise. I can say that this is my first [H]ard pic! :D I like it!

Hard.jpg
 
JessAlba452 said:
I just had a little fun with the camera using the macro setting. Oh and of course trusty photoshop. I didn't scale down the image much which is why you can see noise. I can say that this is my first [H]ard pic! :D I like it!

*[H]*
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DORK!!! :D
 
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