digital camera specs - need a bit of help

CamGirl

Since my Sony CyberShot died few weeks ago, I'm looking for a new camera. Not sure what exactly should I be comparing them, so hopefully somebody could clarify.

1. Megapixels - the old one was 5mpx, but I rarely used it with over 3.1, it gave me perfect quality and I only post 4x6, never posters. Do I really need high high resolution?

2. Optical zoom - seems standard in my price bracket is 3x, sounds ok. Don't think I really need digital, right?

3. Lens Aperture - no idea what that is, but the shop assistant said I want low first number and high second (I must have looked like an eejet to get explanation like that!)

4. My old one had significant delay between pressing the button and shooting, which is very bad when chasing toddlers... are all of them slow? If not, what is that characterstic called?

Anything else should I compare them on? Don't use any of the fancy features, and do want to be able to record short movies. Usually shoot on automatic, and want little hassle. Also want something small and slim. I'll only use it for taking occasional family photos, nothing too fancy.

I was looking at komplett and pixmania, and the ones I've liked were
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W80 (but kind of want to stay away from Sony) http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=334311

Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS (more expensive, but looks nicer, is it worth the money??) http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=335837

Any advice will be appreciated! and sorry for the long post.

leinsterman

Ok ... sounds like you are looking for a general purpose point and shoot ... to be used for portraiture ...

First I'd say check out some reviews -

www.dpreview.com

also check out this article -
http://www.photo.net/equipment/

I can only speak for the brands I know so I may be excluding some good ones ... but in the P&S the best ones are generally Canon, Fuji, Nikon, Sony Cybershot ...

In this forum brands can be a religion (though many of us don't admit it) ... most of us use Canon ... others will say Nikon ... and the odd one has other brands such as Olympus ... but to be honest the majority of us are using Digital SLR cameras in the Prosumer range ... which is not what you want ... since the appeal for us is manual features giving us greater creative control ...

Canon's tend to perform better in low light than the others ... and they have good lenses ... Sony and Nikon also do good lenses (e.g. Zeiss on the Sony AFAIK) ... From my memory the Nikons are more compact than Canon...

Terms explained -

Mpix - You are half right ... for your print size needs 6 is more than fine ... but - memory cards are dirt cheap (2GB SD cards are €20 at www.7dayshop.com) whereas memories are priceless ... so there is never a reason to shoot at less than the full pixel capability of the camera ... you may get a picture some day you do want to go bigger than 6*4 ... and in any case the more pixels you use the better the dynamic range for a given size of image ...

Zoom - Unless you plan to shoot sports or wildlife 3X should be fine for your needs ... and this also means the camera will be more compact (10x optical needs a bigger lens) ... never use a digital zoom they are not a good idea ... all they are doing is cropping your image .. you can do this yourself at the printing stage with any free application such as Google's Picasa ...

Aperture - no idea what the shop assistent was saying to you ... sounds like something you'd hear at Conn's ... Aperture is also called the speed of the lens or F-stop ... it is a measure of its ability to let light in to expose the film (or CCD in the case of digital) ... works on a principle similar to the iris of the eye ... F2.8 is a decent speed for a P&S ... the lower the F number the more light the lens can pass ... but at low F number the dept of field narrows (less of the image is in focus) so it is a trade off depending on your needs ... at F22 the lens passes a lot less light but everything will be in focus at all points distant to quite near whereas F2.8 is used for portraits to narrow the focus and isolate the subject by blurring the background ...

Other stuff to consider -

Battery - AA is good to have if you ever go somewhere there is nowhere to charge the camera

Speed to start - some cameras take ages to start up once switched on... this can cause you to miss a shot from time to time ...

Speed between shots - some cameras take ages to process each image meaning you can't shoot a load of images in sucession ... again this can make you miss the odd shot ...

Other features - different cameras offer different extras such as best shot mode, short video clips, burst mode ... do you need any of these ? ... If not then exclude them from the decision process ... better to spend money on a good camera with less gimmicks than a cheap one with lots ...

Manual Features -sounds like you don't need these ... but they are handy ... particularly if you want more creative control

Shooting modes - they all have this ... but some have more than others (e.g B&W, Sepia, Vivid etc)

Extra items in the package - what is included with the camera ?

ISO - is a measure of the camera's sensitivity to light ... high ISO's mean the camera can shoot with lower light conditions ... but sometimes this introduces noise (grain) ... Canon's are the best at high ISO ... flash photography tends to wash out all the atmosphere ... so shooting without flash at relatively high ISO is sometimes better ... High ISO is anything above 800. Low is 100.

Where to buy - never buy anything in Ireland ... you will be ripped off ... better to purchase form USA or Hong Kong ...

mhoward

nicest compacts - Canon ixus 70 (comes with a free 1gb and case in most Rep IE stores) goes for approx €300
Check out Fuji F40FD nice images also panasonic fx12.
7Mp is about regular now.
3x zoom is regular for a small camera.

you wont get a nice apperature on a compact its like the opening ahead of the lens, the wider it is the more light you will let onto the sensor(creates field of view) the narrower or larger the number the less light gets onto the sensor (everything will be in focus)

Spyral

1. Megapixels - the old one was 5mpx, but I rarely used it with over 3.1, it gave me perfect quality and I only post 4x6, never posters. Do I really need high high resolution?

a decent 3mpx can go to a3 size ;D

2. Optical zoom - seems standard in my price bracket is 3x, sounds ok. Don't think I really need digital, right?

its not about needing digi zoom, YOU DO NOT WANT IT ! all it does is blow up and crop and it looks hideous !

3. Lens Aperture - no idea what that is, but the shop assistant said I want low first number and high second (I must have looked like an eejet to get explanation like that!)

yeah basically lower number = more light BUT less depth of field (the 'range' where stuff is in focus)

sounds to me like a fuji s5600 would be right up your alley mate.

Thirdfox

How about a Panasonic TMZ3? 10x optical zoom, wide angle lens, compact camera, easy to use... Have a look...

CamGirl

Thank you for all detailed explanations! Off to look at the suggestions now:)
Thanks again!!!!

bigeoino

leinsterman has added nearly all of them.

The only ones I think he didn't add is battery ,life (i.e. number of shots on a new battery), especially if you go for a compact with no viewfinder.

and size itself, if it is a pocket/purse camera it is probably worth actually seeing/ holding one in real life (if you can...)

melekalikimaka

CamGirl wrote:

3. Lens Aperture - no idea what that is, but the shop assistant said I want low first number and high second (I must have looked like an eejet to get explanation like that!)

took me so long to understand this baby

hmboards

CamGirl wrote:

4. My old one had significant delay between pressing the button and shooting, which is very bad when chasing toddlers... are all of them slow? If not, what is that characterstic called?

This is shutter lag. It was a real joy to overcome this when I moved from a compact to an SLR a few years ago, as SLR cameras don't have this problem. If you look at the camera reviews on dpreview.com, they report this lag in fractions of a second.