Digital Camera recommendations

Alright, as I said in another thread, I have been spoiled by my high school's equipment. For the past three+ years, I've had access to a Nikon D100/D70/D70s and amazing lens kits and the whole deal. Over holidays, weekends, summer vacation. Personal use for whatever I wanted (as long as I showed up for school events like my job dictated). This Friday is my last day there, and after graduation, I officially will be without a camera. This does not work for me.

I'm going to assume off the bat that there's no way in hell I can get a DSLR for under $500, so I'm going to force myself to not bitch about little fixed-lens cameras and buy one. I have about $300 saved up in an old bank account that I haven't touched since I was ten, so I'm gonna put that towards a camera. I might (might might might) get maybe $100 from my extended family for graduation, so my absolute budget is $400.

I want something pretty good, since I'm used to fancy-ass digital SLRs and don't want to downgrade all that much. Nothing under 5 megapixels if possible, some decent optical zoom, and one that doesn't suffer from that god-awful blur problem I see with most digital cameras. I do not have steady hands, and I am not toting around a mini-tripod. It needs to hold up its own in sub-par lighting and be able to correct shaky-hand-syndrome.

Recommend something. Pictures, links, reviews, whatever. I want to get one in the next two weeks. And hey, if anyone is selling a DSLR body for under $500, I will buy it off of you immediately.

lol, I can see a broken D70 from here.

I wonder how long it will take for someone to give the obviously tasteless answer to your problem.

Nomi we already discussed ways for you to make money in #TNL.

Honest to God, it might hit me in the summer how badly I'll miss a DSLR and who knows how I'll crack, then. Me being without a camera is like taking away the fancy-ass modded computer from some absurdly nerdy CS addict. I cannot recall going a straight week in the past three years without having that camera with me.

funny, we never got a lot of pictures from you....

hmm

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nomi

Honest to God, it might hit me in the summer how badly I'll miss a DSLR and who knows how I'll crack, then. Me being without a camera is like taking away the fancy-ass modded computer from some absurdly nerdy CS addict. I cannot recall going a straight week in the past three years without having that camera with me.

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Nice.

As a rule I think photographers hate being in pictures, most of the time. I prefer being on the other side of the lens.

Now will somebody actually contribute something useful/suggest a camera model?

I'd get the Cannon powershot S2. Those things are going for cheaps right now, like $300 - $350. The only knock on it is it's 5MP and not something more rediculous. 5 ain't too bad though. For the money i think it's a great option just short of a true DSLR.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...Fencoding=UTF8

Damn, that's better than anything I was going to recommend.

As far as only being 5 mp... resolution in digital cameras is horseshit. What matters is that the manufacturer uses a good lense, and usually you can tell by the price point. For example, my old Canon Powershot S10 (2 megapixels) that was originally $350 takes better pictures than a new $200 Kodak C340 5 MP camera. Of course, as someone who sells them resolution is all that matters to most folks.

By the way, as you can tell I like Canon digitals, the only bad thing about them is that they can be difficult to use for some people, but it sounds like you're probably a much more advanced photographer than I am so it should be a piece of cake compared to what you are used to.

Don't a lot of the higher-end small ones use those Carl Zeiss lenses? I'm adamantly against Kodak and (most) Sony small cameras due to personal bad experience with them.

I'm also concerned about how they compress their images. On the D70s, I'd shoot at the absolute highest resolution and absolute highest quality/lowest compression, and RAW if I was doing something portrait-y for a full-color spread. I'm not sure how small cameras handle JPEG compression.

I'm gonna look around on that one you pointed out, stormy. It has decent praise from a few review sites I respect, but I'm still gonna look around more (or hope someone wants to sell a DSLR body cheap/used/whatever).