Soccer Dad

Thoughts on a digital camera

Occasionally I've been asked my opinion on digital cameras. Since in slightly less than 3 years we've owned four different digital cameras, I think I've learned a little bit about them. Two have broken (one after a year and the warranty expired, the other by dropping.) One was lost.

One thing I tell people is to get one that uses four batteries. It seems that every two battery model runs through batteries (new or rechargeable) much too fast. (Especially when you use the LCD monitor instead of the viewfinder.) Although my son has a Canon with a battery pack, I'm not familiar with the power efficiency of that model.

If possible I tell people to get a better than 3x optical zoom if they can. The digital zoom is pretty worthless for most uses. (Perhaps it isn't, but I don't know how to use it effectively.) So the optical zoom really is the only effective zoon you will have for most of your photography. Unfortunately, no matter what other features improve (resolution, settings for different enviroments) the 3x zoom seems to be the maximum you will find on any camera under $200.

The one exception I've found was the Konica-Minolta Dimage Z10 with an 8x optical zoom. And that's the one I bought for my wife last year for our anniversary. I really like it a lot. My wife uses it occasionally too :-)

In addition the Z10 has four batteries powering it not two and doesn't run them down very quickly. It's power efficiency is very good. Even using the LCD monitor frequently.

Another nice feature is that its flash, though built-in, can be set to reduce or eliminate red-eye. There hasn't been as much touch up necessary with the Z10 as I've had with other cameras we've had.

The Z10 has a tremendous amount of flexibility and I haven't begun to play with all the settings.

This past year Konica-Minolta brought out the Z20, a Z10 lookalike, which currently runs $200-$250 but has a resolution of up to 5 megapixels. If it's anything like its predecessor it would be a great camera.

The last thing to be aware when buying a digital camera is the type of memory card it uses. This is an issue if you've bought a camera in the past. Our two previous cameras were HP's and they used SD cards. the Konica-Minolta does too, and that was one of the reasons I chose it over a Fuji Finepix. The HP's may have broken but their cards were fine. The Fuji though uses XD cards and it wasn't worth it to invest in camera that would require a new card. (The Fuji also only had 3x optical zoom.)

If you need any advice on Digital Cameras, Steve's Digicams is top notch. A co-worker recommended and the information I learned about the cameras I was considering was very useful in making my decision. It is a complete reference for everything you might want to know about a given model. It even has sample pictures from the cameras being reviewed to give you a sense of how well a camera handles colors and lighting.

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