Digital Camera Choice

I have been on travel for the last 8 days and have been unable to follow the board and the threads. This one is of particular interest to me, because photography is my hobby, and digital photography is going to be one of my main activities when I retire in 13 working days. I am in the process of buying one, so I can share some things with you that I found out.

First and foremost, ask yourself what you are going to use it for. If it is for pictures for the computer and to e-mail grandma, exceedingly high resolution is not that important. Then you must consider price, features (particularly digital storage within the camera), download techniques, and a whole host of others that only you can determine.

I have selected as my choice the Kodak 260, $899 retail, ~$730 street. I wanted a "high-end" camera, with maximum resolution (for now) and fast download. I plan on printing out some pictures on a to-be-purchased quality color printer. This camera will provide "excellent" hardcopy prints at sizes smaller than 5x7, "very good" 5x7 prints, and "good" 8x10's. Make no mistake - it is NOT as sharp as a standard 35mm, but it is getting there.

Basically, I read a lot of camera reviews (go to your favorite search engine and enter "digital cameras" and you will be overwhelmed!). I have one more step to do before I buy mine - go to a store and handle one.

The Kodak 260 (no stock in Kodak - not a rep, either) is a 1,536 X 1,024 pixel system. The more pixels, the higher the resolution (sharpness). It has a lot of other features I like, a few I don't like, but two are particular important to me - the picture storage in the camera (this one uses CompactFlash cards) and the download time. An 8 MB card comes with the camera, and will hold a HUGE number of pictures of lower resolution (two lower ones are available), but only about 4 of the highest resolution. Fortunately, CF cards are available up to 48 MB. Most digital cameras (particularly the less expensive ones) download to your computer (PC or laptop) via the serial port, an extremely slow process. The 260 has what is called a USB bus, which permits downloading of even the high resolution pictures in SECONDS. [I am impatient at times!]

Again, there are a number of cameras out there, from the Barbie (at about $70) to ones costing tens of thousands. If you only want quick snaps of your kids to send to grandma by e-mail, you can certainly get by with less resolution and fewer bells and whistles.

Let me know about your choice and your experiences!

Cheers,

-b-