Camera's

[Merion_Mom]

HERE and HERE is some information on that.

 

Dank U!

[RareBird]

my canon A700 and two 2GB SD cards for a total of about 1,700 shots in highest res.

 

great camera for pics and video, current model is A710 with image stabilization.

 

6x Optical Zoom & 6MP pics

[Merion_Mom]

Correction on my post abolve: my SD700IS does not take AA batteries. That may be a camera for you to consider if you have concerns about that. The poster above is right though in stating that the speed of the memory card is important. ;)

 

Ok, one more annoying question for tonight:

 

I have narrowed it down to the Canon A570 IS or Canon SD800 IS.

 

There is a $100 difference. Can the 800 be worth $100 more than the A570????

[cryscruiser]

I don't own a camera any longer. I have enough shoeboxes of "un-looked at" photos to last me a lifetime. If I need to remember something, I order one less martini.

[Lisichka]

Ok, one more annoying question for tonight:

 

I have narrowed it down to the Canon A570 IS or Canon SD800 IS.

 

There is a $100 difference. Can the 800 be worth $100 more than the A570????

 

Keep your eyes open for a good price on the SD800 IS. It is an awesome camera, and often has sales. Just last week they had it for $280 AC at Office Depot (sale is over now unfortunately). (Go HERE and type SD800 IS in the search box, then keep your eyes open for a great price. People there will always find a great price when it is out there).

 

Both have great reviews though, so you can't go wrong on either.

 

(PS: where did you learn to speak Dutch?)

[01821]

Canon SD 550, and a Kodak underwater disposable. I made the mistake of buying a cheap underwater camera that is re-loadable. On our BOSS underwater excursion, the divers take your cameras to take pix of you, and every other person had the Kodaks, the diver had a problem using mine and only took 3 pix. Our friends got a dozen from their Kodak, and they came out great.

[1alexcartermom]

Can you direct me to some online professional reviews for this camera?

 

 

The review that convinced me to buy the Olympus 770 SW is here: http://www.scubadiverinfo.com/3_cameras_olympus_770sw.html

[Lisichka]

The review that convinced me to buy the Olympus 770 SW is here: http://www.scubadiverinfo.com/3_cameras_olympus_770sw.html

 

Yes, I think I read that review yesterday. Good if you want to dive, but not so great for an all-around camera. Would be nice to have as a 2nd camera though. :) Hhhhmmmm......

[gamecockvic]

I found that the larger the camera, the more likely I am to leave it in my cabin or on the ship. For that reason, a few years ago I purchased a SONY W1. It fits easily on my belt and goes everwhere with me on a cruise. The limitations are that it only has 3X optical zoom and does not have image stabilization. Every year I get back and am surprised that what looked like a clear photo on the 2" LCD is slightly blurred, even at 4X6 inches.

 

My solution is to bring a second camera this year. I recentlt purchased a SONY DSC-H5 with image stabilization and a 12X zoom. Also, a 3" LCD! It is slightly larger than the W1, but can still be placed in a small case. Both use AA rechargeables and the same memory stick. The W1 will still be my light days camera or bad weather camera. The DSC-H5 will be my primary.

 

What you take will be based on your preferences as to convenience, size, complexity, etc. Good luck!

[BecciBoo]

Personally I very much prefer a camera that takes AA batteries. I have never experienced the lag that you are talking about. Both my Canon S3 IS and my Canon SD700 IS have AA batteries, and I love it. Just make sure you get rechargeable batteries.

 

As far as the Olympus is concerned that people have mentioned: unfortunately the reviews are less than great. It takes poor indoor pictures and appears to have issues with the screen. It is nice that it is water proof, but you can get cases for the Canon, and several of the other cameras people have mentioned.

 

We read those reviews about poor quality indoors and we found that they were completely unfounded. I think those people didn't read the manual or were unformiliar with the different modes, i.e. using the wrong mode for indoors. It takes wonderful indoor and low light pictures. We've never noticed graininess on any picture. Does it make sense that if it took great pix underwater, with less light and spectrum it wouldn't take great pix indoors with flash? In short, I wouldn't trade this camera for any other, accept the newer 770.

 

It was even able to capture the sounds of reef fish chewing on the coral as we filmed in the video mode.

[Merion_Mom]

Keep your eyes open for a good price on the SD800 IS. It is an awesome camera, and often has sales. Just last week they had it for $280 AC at Office Depot (sale is over now unfortunately). (Go HERE and type SD800 IS in the search box, then keep your eyes open for a great price. People there will always find a great price when it is out there).

 

Both have great reviews though, so you can't go wrong on either.

 

(PS: where did you learn to speak Dutch?)

 

I'm a "language person" so I just looked it up in one of my bookmarked online dictionaries! ;)

 

Dank U nogmaals for all of your help!

[Lisichka]

I'm a "language person" so I just looked it up in one of my bookmarked online dictionaries! ;)

 

Dank U nogmaals for all of your help!

 

Hehehehe. LOVE it!!!! :D

 

And....you're welcome.

[robtulipe]

I thought that I had educated myself in all the "bullet points" for selecting my camera, but please explain this one. Please explain "speed of the memory card". Is this a built-in feature, or something that you buy and insert? What should I look for to get the level I need/want? (is this the SD, HD, HDX thingie? - if so, I didn't know that they had "speed" - I thought that they just had memory capacity)

The 80X Compact Flash memory card I just bought not only advertised it was 50X faster than a standard 30X card but it uses less battery power to do this. Also take note that the type of card will determine it write/read speed capabilities. My Sony alpha 100 SLR can use a compact flash or a Memory Stick Pro Duo memory (with supplied adapter) but the CF is the much quicker card. This is not hard to understand why this is since the CF has fives times more connection slots at 50 compared to the Pro Duo's 10. My other camera, a Sony Cyber-shot uses the Pro Duo but it is nice to know in a bind I can use it's memory card in the SLR.

[Cuizer2]

The 80X Compact Flash memory card I just bought not only advertised it was 50X faster than a standard 30X card but it uses less battery power to do this.

 

80X is 50 times faster than 30X. Is this "new" math? Is $80 fifty times more money that $30? If a game cost $30, can I get 50 games for $80? This sounds like the same logic that says if one is 10% off, then two must be 20% off, and three must be 30% off and by the time you get to ten, everything is free.

 

80X is not even three times faster than 30X. I tested the read speed of three different CF cards a while back. The two claiming to be the fastest were slower than the third one. My test involved transferring between 200 and 250 MB of data to the CF card via the same computer. Each test took several minutes. In the end the difference in claimed speed was not that big of a deal.

 

The only way this test would not be valid is if the computer was feeding the data to the cards at a slower rate than the cards could handle, and thus it was the computer, and not the read speed of the cards, that was slowing things down. The computer was a HP running at 2 GHz with 1 GB RAM. The CF card reader was built into the computer. I could try it again with my Gateway running at 3 GHz. The Gateway computer has 2 GB RAM and also has a built in card slot for CF and SD cards (the two types I have several of).

 

Unless you are saving the RAW image, I don't think it is going to matter that much. A high quality eight mega-pixel JPEG image is still only around three mega-bytes (the RAW file size would be over twenty MB). The minor differences in speed that I found from my test would be hardly noticeable in real use.

[robtulipe]

80X is 50 times faster than 30X. Is this "new" math? Is $80 fifty times more money that $30? If a game cost $30, can I get 50 games for $80? This sounds like the same logic that says if one is 10% off, then two must be 20% off, and three must be 30% off and by the time you get to ten, everything is free.

 

80X is not even three times faster than 30X. I tested the read speed of three different CF cards a while back. The two claiming to be the fastest were slower than the third one. My test involved transferring between 200 and 250 MB of data to the CF card via the same computer. Each test took several minutes. In the end the difference in claimed speed was not that big of a deal.

 

The only way this test would not be valid is if the computer was feeding the data to the cards at a slower rate than the cards could handle, and thus it was the computer, and not the read speed of the cards, that was slowing things down. The computer was a HP running at 2 GHz with 1 GB RAM. The CF card reader was built into the computer. I could try it again with my Gateway running at 3 GHz. The Gateway computer has 2 GB RAM and also has a built in card slot for CF and SD cards (the two types I have several of).

 

Unless you are saving the RAW image, I don't think it is going to matter that much. A high quality eight mega-pixel JPEG image is still only around three mega-bytes (the RAW file size would be over twenty MB). The minor differences in speed that I found from my test would be hardly noticeable in real use.

I agree that a card rated at 80X is only 2 2/3 times faster than a card rated at 30X. I guess I should have wrote the 80X has a rating that is 50X greater instead of 50X faster. I have some regular CF cards and may try a comparison with the 80X CF and the Pro Dua on my 64 bit computer with a built in card reader but this might not be a valid comparison as card reader are not like onboard computer memory. It makes a difference how far the memory is from the processor. That's why some processors, like AMD specify that you should put the larger RAM memory in the closest slot to the processor. The only time I can imagine it might make a difference if you are shooting in a continuous mode with a higher MP camera.

It might be a better comparison to do a continuous shots test on a high (10 or greater) MP camera.

[TO_HockeyMum]

I was thinking of buying a digital SLR and also taking a Kodak point and shoot that we also have. Between the 5 of us, we will take a lot of pictures.

 

Is bringing a laptop with us to upload the pictures a good idea? I usually upload my pictures to our Yahoo photo album, but I guess that the slow connection speed on the ship would make that expensive, would it?

 

Thanks.

[kathyemma]

more cards - not sure about the prices for internet on the ship - but i know card prices are pretty low right now.

 

Kathy

[Cuizer2]

I was thinking of buying a digital SLR and also taking a Kodak point and shoot that we also have. Between the 5 of us, we will take a lot of pictures.

 

Is bringing a laptop with us to upload the pictures a good idea? I usually upload my pictures to our Yahoo photo album, but I guess that the slow connection speed on the ship would make that expensive, would it?

 

Thanks.

 

I bring my laptop and I use it to store photos. I also have enough in memory cards to last me for an entire cruise (I have over 8 GB of memory card storage and only shoot about 2 GB of photos per week). I also use my laptop to view the photos (it is easier to see on a fifteen inch screen than on a two inch screen).

 

I don't do the Internet on the ship. However, I believe it costs 50¢ per minute and runs at about dial up speed. So, if you take 200 photos and upload at the rate of two per minute, then it will take you 100 minutes to upload. 100 minutes at 50¢ per minute is $50. For that price you can buy a 2 GB memory card for your camera, and 200 photos, even from an eight mega-pixel camera, takes up less than 2 GB (unless you shoot RAW images).

 

Other points/options - You cannot upload the photos via the ship's computers. With the ship's computers you can access the mouse and keyboard, but not any of the drive bays or USB ports (for card readers). You can however, for a price, ask the photo shop to burn the photos from your memory card to a CD. Make sure they don't erase the photos. You can do that after you have verified the photos were properly copied to the CD.

 

Of course, if you do take your laptop, you will have access to the drive bays and USB ports. You can also burn your own CDs. Or, just take extra memory cards and upload the cards when you get home.

[Merion_Mom]

I just wanted to report the outcome of all of my questions and research.

 

I ended up buying a camera I had never really expected to like.

 

It's a Sony DSC W80. I LOVE it. I have uploaded my pictures from the Pre-Inaugural sailing of the Liberty of the Seas, May 7-9, but am still working on arranging them properly.

 

I want to thank everyone for all the advice and support. :)

 

I'll come back and post the URL, if anyone wants to see them.

[ColoradoMom!!]

 

I want to thank everyone for all the advice and support. :)

 

I'll come back and post the URL, if anyone wants to see them.

 

Please do -- I'm even more confused than ever :confused:

[lanabanana]

Ok....I'll jump into the fray here. I can't believe I haven't seen this thread before, as I've also been searching for the "perfect" point and shoot camera. I'm crosseyed from reading reviews and thinking I've decided upon one or another and then changing my mind. One of the problems is that there is too many choices!

 

When Radio was posting recently live from the Jewel, he was posting beautiful pics and I asked what camera he was using. Do you think I can remember what he told me? No! It's one of the problems with being my age, I think.

 

So, keep chiming in, people and help those of us who are still looking. Merion Mom, your camera is in my price range so please continue sharing how you like it!

 

Thanks!

[Merion_Mom]

This my first digital camera. I researched features, prices, peripherals, read the reviews, found more websites and read more descriptions, yada yada yada.

 

A couple of people said: Go to the store and TRY the cameras.

 

I was positive that I had narrowed my choices down to 2: both were Canons.

 

I went to a local full-service camera shop.

 

The very knowledgeable salesman put both of my Canon choices on the counter.

 

I picked them up and began to "play" with them. Neither one of them *grabbed* me. The guy asked me why I had chosen those two; what was it that I was looking for in a camera?

 

I described which features were essential for me, and said that these were the only two that I had found that had those features.

 

He said, Oh, this Sony has those features. He put one in my hands, and it just FELT RIGHT. I liked the controls, I liked the display, I liked the way it *helped* me with the picture taking.

 

And I haven't been disappointed with my choice!

 

It has image stabilization - essential, as far as I am concerned.

 

It has 2 megapixels and 3x optical zoom, and a 2.5" screen, AND an optical viewfinder. That's becoming increasingly hard to find, but essential for anyone who ever finds those screens difficult to see in certain conditions.

[lanabanana]

I think you mean it has 7.2 mp! You'd be hard pressed to find a camera sold today with only 2 mp!

 

My question is, did you buy the camera from the camera guy? I don't want to go to a "real" camera store because I would feel like I was wasting the person's time. It's unlikely that he can match the price that I can find online for any camera and I just have a bad feeling about using his expertise to choose a camera and then not buying it! I'm just weird that way.

 

Thanks so much for sharing your camera odyssey with us. It's exactly the same story as I'm currently in. It is SO confusing to try and find what you want in size, features and price. Some days it makes my brain spin!

 

Alanna

[EastTexans2]

O.K. I have a camera question for all of you. I have a new digital camera that we have used on a couple of cruises and it works great. No problems.

 

Now my DH thinks we should have a DVD camcorder. I don't think we would use it enough. Comments anyone..................

[jstpshe]

O.K. I have a camera question for all of you. I have a new digital camera that we have used on a couple of cruises and it works great. No problems.

 

Now my DH thinks we should have a DVD camcorder. I don't think we would use it enough. Comments anyone..................

 

 

 

LOL I was just sitting here wondering that same thing and then your post showed up in my email.

We always take ours on the trips so we have moving live video to look at but with pic taking and both of us using our Binos I'm wondering if it would just be a lot of work to do all. Also so much time is taken up trying to video everything and dragging it all around.

 

So can someone answer this for the both os us, please?

 

Thanks, CJ :) :)