| Author | Message | ||
     Phillip Perkinson (Rover4x4) Senior Member Username: Rover4x4 Post Number: 633 Registered: 02-2003 |
WHo makes a camera that isnt delicate and can stand up to rigors such as backpacking climbing maybe some mountain biking? granted it is something that requires care and all but i am looking for a digital camera that can stand up to the active lifestyle and wont breakdown with use amoung the elements. are there any availible that are weather proof/resistant and shock proof? thanks for any help. | ||
| Paul D. Morgan (V22guy) Dweb Lounge Member Username: V22guy Post Number: 2387 Registered: 02-2002 |
Hi Phil, I highly recommend the Canon Powershot A40. Bought it in 2002 at Wally World with a 64 MB card for around $290. It has been dropped, rained on, and bounced around the Pig at many Dirt Road Safari's. I take it everywhere and it has never let me down. Paul | ||
| Phillip Perkinson (Rover4x4) Senior Member Username: Rover4x4 Post Number: 634 Registered: 02-2003 |
cool. how is the photo quality? | ||
| Paul D. Morgan (V22guy) Dweb Lounge Member Username: V22guy Post Number: 2388 Registered: 02-2002 |
It's a 2.2 Megapixel. Don't let the low numbers fool you. There are three LRM's this year that have photos form that camera. | ||
| Steve Andrews (Sillybus) Senior Member Username: Sillybus Post Number: 412 Registered: 08-2002 |
Same camera I've got. I like it as well. | ||
| Brian Dickens (Bri) Senior Member Username: Bri Post Number: 1000 Registered: 08-2002 |
There is now a minolta that has metal housing and is waterproof. | ||
| Peter Carey (Peterca) New Member Username: Peterca Post Number: 35 Registered: 10-2003 |
Phillip, I've got a Canon S400 among others. It might fit the bill as does the A40. You can buy a diving shell for it as well if you want it truely water proof. Are you just looking for snap shots or something more like a Digital SLR? pwc | ||
| Steve Cooper (Scrover) Senior Member Username: Scrover Post Number: 642 Registered: 09-2002 |
I just got the Canon A80 - 4 megapixels - like the S400. I chose the A80 'cos it takes AA batteries and has a foldout swivel screen, otherwise it's the same internals. The quality is awesome - both the pictures and the camera. SC | ||
| SSV (Susannah) Senior Member Username: Susannah Post Number: 633 Registered: 06-2002 |
Canon A60...great. We love ours (though this is our second under warranty...first one just went berzerk!). Steve, we also chose it for the batteries and option to use rechargeable ones. Ours is 3mp. | ||
| Peter Carey (Peterca) New Member Username: Peterca Post Number: 37 Registered: 10-2003 |
Steve, How many shots can you get on a pair of batteries with the A80? I've heard sometimes it's limited. | ||
| Musky Rover (Gumarcel) Senior Member Username: Gumarcel Post Number: 1171 Registered: 11-2002 |
I would say if you want a durable somewhat water resistant camera try an olympus. They are great still cameras, so I would assume their digital ones would be great. I have a sony one that is great and rather small, the DSC-P10. It is small around 4 inches wide and 2 inches tall and is a 5.0MP camera. I haven't had it very long but I have droped it a few times and once in mud and it is still doing great. | ||
| Ivan 94 LWB (Montoya) New Member Username: Montoya Post Number: 27 Registered: 01-2003 |
Prices have really come down to the point they are almost 'disposable'. There are many sub-$200 2mp and even 3mp (w/out optical zoom) available by Nikon, Sony, and Canon. No digital camera is complete w/out Photoshop 2.o ($80ish) to touch up your pics. I have a 4mp nikon 4500 which is great, but those large images start to take up some good hardrive space especially with a new baby. I've only printed a handful 8x10's. It is nice to be able to blow up parts of a picture though with the higher resolution pics but it is a lot of work maitaining and modifying those big images. | ||
| Porter Mann (Porter) Member Username: Porter Post Number: 114 Registered: 05-2003 |
I have a cannon powershot S40, and I love it. They have the S45 (upgraded) and S50 (5mp) camera now - same thing just newer, and they have been well liked by many people. My S40 was accidently run over by my friend after she didn't realize that the camera had dropped out of the car. It didn't survive unscathed but the metal housing did a great job in protecting most of the stuff, but a return to Cannon only cost me 100 dollars to repair (casing, LCD lens, optical motor, front and rear lens). Downfall is that its a little heavy becuase of the full metal housing. Otherwise a great camera I would buy again. | ||
| Phillip Perkinson (Rover4x4) Senior Member Username: Rover4x4 Post Number: 637 Registered: 02-2003 |
no need for an SLR just wnat something to take biking hiking backpackin wheelin. thanks for the info | ||
| Reed Cotton (Reedcotton) Senior Member Username: Reedcotton Post Number: 305 Registered: 01-2003 |
TheOlympus 300/400 series are water resistant. Then if you need waterPROOF they also sell an underwater case for it. I have the 300. It takes good pictures, and is almost small enough to comfortably carry in my shirt pocket. | ||
| Al Oliveira (Offroaddisco) Senior Member Username: Offroaddisco Post Number: 1668 Registered: 04-2002 |
http://www.dpreview.com Cannon and Nikon are both good brands. My old(er) Nikon 950 has held up very well and better than my brothers Cannon (S110?). As someone already said, don't fall into the pixel trap (more is not always better). Also, get a camera that you'll carry around but keep in mind that even though this is an electronic device, smaller isn't always better if the lens is a tiny POS. | ||
| Peter Carey (Peterca) New Member Username: Peterca Post Number: 39 Registered: 10-2003 |
BTW, the site Al listed has a great comparison feature at http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sidebyside.asp Does really nice side by side comparisons of all the stats. pwc | ||
| Steve Cooper (Scrover) Senior Member Username: Scrover Post Number: 645 Registered: 09-2002 |
Peter, It varies depending on flash usage. The A80 takes 4 AA batts. so Canon specs. are approx. 250 shots with LCD on or approx. 800 with the LCD off, for alkaline batts. SC | ||
| Dean Brown (Deanbrown3d) Senior Member Username: Deanbrown3d Post Number: 1318 Registered: 02-2002 |
My Fuji mx2700 (2.2Meg) I've had for about 6 years now, and its been hiked and wheeled and wet and abused uncountable times. If its raining I keep it in a zip-lock sandwich bag w/ silica gel pack when not in use. Dean | ||
| Jamie (Rover_puppy) Senior Member Username: Rover_puppy Post Number: 747 Registered: 05-2003 |
I'm using the Fuji Fine Pix 3800. When shopping for digital camera, I told them I wanted something so simple that a kindergartner could operate it. I took almost 1000 pics trail riding this weekend shooting @ 3M and only had to change batteries once. Whatever you choose, get one of the small Pelicans from Expedition Exchange for when you are on the road - my camera has stayed safe and dry in it thru lots of trail abuse. I cut out little squares in the foam on the right and left side so changing memory chips is a no brainer. Empty chips on the right side, full chips on the left side. I have dropped my camera a few times and it has been exposed to heavy rains without any problems. It takes great close-ups and also zooms well. Here are 2 pics taken this weekend from the same area.   | ||
| Paul D. Morgan (V22guy) Dweb Lounge Member Username: V22guy Post Number: 2398 Registered: 02-2002 |
Has anyone messed around with the new Sony DVD cam? I am talking about the kind that takes the disk.... DCR-DVD100 DVD Handycam� Camcorder DCR-DVD100  I thought this would be a cool camera to have for the family and to take on trips. Definately have to acquire a small Pelican to protect it though. Any thoughts..... | ||
| Jamie (Rover_puppy) Senior Member Username: Rover_puppy Post Number: 766 Registered: 05-2003 |
When you get your digital camera, find a Ritz Photo Shop for the EASIEST softwre. They have this program called Picasa and you can get it FREE. You can run Picasa alone, or in combination with your camera software and/or your operating system photo software. It is totally cool. All pics are organized in the left hand column by the folder or album name and on the rest of the screen, the pics in each album are shown in filmstip or thumbnails. Click on any folder and it scrolls immediately down to where those pics are located. The best thing about the program is that when you view the pic, it is also visible in a little window on the bottom of the screen called the "picture tray". By clicking "hold" while that pic is showing, it stays in the "tray" along with any other pics you "hold". When you get all the pics you want in the tray, you click a button that says "export". The export dialog box pops up requesting that you check the export size, of which there are 4 choices: 1024 pixels, 640 pixels, 320 PIXELS (DiscoWeb size!!) or Original size. Click the size you want, then it asks where you want them. Click that and they go there immediately in whatever size you wanted. On my computer, I created a folder called Pics Upload to DiscoWeb so I send them there. The entire process of resizing pics for DiscoWeb upload takes less than 15 seconds. Another thing I like about Picasa is that it uploads pics from my digital memory chips in a similar more speedy process than the camera software. | ||
| Axel Haakonsen (Axel) Moderator Username: Axel Post Number: 799 Registered: 02-2003 |
Paul; Of course it depends on what you want to do with the footage. Personally, I see a couple of major shortcomings with the DVD camera, at least if you want to do any editing afterwards. Since this camera records to DVD-R, it will have to compress the footage to mpeg2 on the fly as it writes to the disk. Mpeg2 is compressed. MiniDV and Digital8 is for all intents and purposes uncompressed video. If all you want to do is shoot, then put the disk in a DVD player and watch it, this is fine. But you will bore everyone to death with your disk of unedited footage. If you want to edit it, you would have to find a way to get that mpeg2 footage into your computer, then edit it. Good Mpeg2 capture hardvare (if you can find it) are more expensive than solutions that deal with uncompressed avi files, and mpeg2 editing is known to be more unstable than editing avi files. I won't touch mpeg2 with a 10 foot pole for editing of the Dweb videos. You are also dealing with compressed footage with mpeg2, which means lower quality in the end. Sure, with uncompressed avi you have to compress the finished video into mpeg2 before you put it back on DVD, but the end result of that is much better if you do the compression after you edit instead of before. Just my 2 centavos.... - Axel | ||
| Paul D. Morgan (V22guy) Dweb Lounge Member Username: V22guy Post Number: 2424 Registered: 02-2002 |
Wow. Thanks Ax. I was looking for a Video Cam that could shoot and then I could easily edit at home on my pc. Like when Myra takes her first step: shoot a video, throw in domw music, then mail to grandma. Or even stick it to a window in the Pig and go hit some trails. Looks I need to do more research. I know Tommy Doughtery (sky diver guy)is up on all this and hopefully he'll post. | ||
| Axel Haakonsen (Axel) Moderator Username: Axel Post Number: 800 Registered: 02-2003 |
I would just get a MiniDV or Digital8 camera in the same price range. Sony has some good ones using that format too. If you don't already have a Firewire connecton on your PC, you can just get an inexpensive firewire card for it. Windows already comes with Moviemaker, or if you want something a little more advanced, go to the Videoguys site at http://www.videoguys.com They have a lot of info, and solutions in pretty much every pricerange. They also stand behind what they sell, and are knowledgeable and helpful. I would say they are the EE of video products. - Axel | ||
| Paul D. Morgan (V22guy) Dweb Lounge Member Username: V22guy Post Number: 2425 Registered: 02-2002 |
That's all you had to say Ax. | ||
| Victor (Vabiro) Member Username: Vabiro Post Number: 158 Registered: 10-2003 |
Hi, I have relatively limited experience with digital cammeras, so forgive what might seem like an obvious question. With a new baby we thought it time to move into a digital. After a bit of research and surveys of other owners I ended up purchasing the Kodak CX6330 3.1 Megapixel with 3x optical zoom. I have been quite happy so far, but have been a bit disappointed with the shutter response. There seems to be a significant delay between the time that I press the shutter release and the picture is taken. This makes it next to impossable to take candid shots, or decent shots of anything in motion. Is this common to all digital cammeras, or just to non-SLR versions? Am I going to have to stick with my 35mm SLR for anything very fast moving? Thanks, Victor | ||
| Peter Carey (Peterca) Member Username: Peterca Post Number: 43 Registered: 10-2003 |
Victor, It's fairly common but is also something camera companies are trying to improve upon. Some are better than others, but for now *most* of the P&S types will have some lag. Having a 2 year old and having started with a Canon G1 I understand how annoying it can be. I'm not sure if your camera has it but some have a "auto-drive" feature where they can get up to 1.5 frames per second and then you can just hold it down and hope. Which kind of SLR do you have? You may consider jumping up to digital SLR but there is obviously more cost involved. Although most major brands have one out so you wouldn't need to get other lenses. The lag time is not an issue with most D-SLR. I used a Canon Digital Rebel tonight for about 150 shots of 3 kids running around most of the night. The flash was decent and recycled fast and the focus was quick as well. I caught a large number of good shots that I wouldn't have got with the Point & Shoot types. Faster kids demand faster cameras.  |
