George, There are SO many models, so many new cameras that I cannot keep up with them all.
Bob Werre and others may have some suggestions, but my best thought is to find a genuine camera store if there is one handy, grab a knowledgeable sales person and have them run over the details of various models. There is no substitute for a hands-on demo. As far as brands go, I personally think it is best to stick with the names that have been big for decades, and in no particular order: Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Leica of course (if they have a digital camera in your price range). If this is your first digital camera, I would suggest you get as many megapixels as you can for the money, although a 14-megapixel camera that does everything you want it to do for the right price is probably a better choice than a 16-megapixel camera that does not include certain options that appeal to you. If most of your photo displaying will be online and in prints 8x10² or smaller, you won¹t notice any difference in a couple of megapixels. For my point and shoot digital needs I bought an Olympus waterproof camera, TG-1 I think is. It has a short zoom-1:5-which is a disadvantage in some situations, and I would not necessarily recommend it for that reason. I did use it to shoot many of the photos in my just-out photo book City of Fountains: Kansas City¹s Legacy of Beauty and Motion if you want to see how the images compare to others taken with my Nikon D800 and D300. I have a fb page of the same name with many of the photos from the book. I cannot tell the difference in quality between the images shot with the expensive cameras and with the P&S. I have several cameras, because for my needs, one will not do everything. Your mileage may vary. Cheers :) Roy Inman www.unionstationphotos.com From: gsc3 <[email protected]> Reply-To: S-Scale <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2013 01:35:23 +0000 To: S-Scale <[email protected]> Subject: {S-Scale List} Camera for Christmas Group, I received money for a digital camera for Christmas. Anyone recommend a all-purpose camera $500 and under that would still take decent layout shots? Anyone have such a animal? Most of the photos will be vacations and such. Thanks, George Courtney
