Which camera?

[terryc]

Hi

I'm looking for a camera as I'm hoping to get more "into" amateur photography. I've done a fair bit in the past, but always with a fairly basic 2MP point and shoot camera. Unfortunately, this camera has finally died and I'd like to replace it with something more sophisticated.

I started looking at SLRs, but have sort of decided that they're probably too expensive for my needs, and I'm unlikely to need to (or be able to afford to) buy extra lenses and things.

I would, however, like to experiment with filters, and I'd like something with a wide zoom, plenty of features, good build quality, the ability to adjust shutter speed, etc.

A friend has the Olympus C8080, and I've had a play around with that and really like it, so I guess something like that would be ideal. I've also been looking at the Nikon 8700, which looks like it might be good. However, the same friend says that as these cameras are now two years old, they might have been superseded by better, perhaps smaller models. He also says that they have slow response times when pushing the shutter, and that the 8700 doesn't have a very wide lens (something I'm looking for).

I've seen a second-hand 8700 on eBay for 300 pounds sterling, the 8080 for about 350. I wouldn't want to pay any more than that (ideally no more than 300).

Does anyone have any suggestions for cameras I should look at?

[ziggy53]

Hi

I'm looking for a camera as I'm hoping to get more "into" amateur photography. I've done a fair bit in the past, but always with a fairly basic 2MP point and shoot camera. Unfortunately, this camera has finally died and I'd like to replace it with something more sophisticated.

I started looking at SLRs, but have sort of decided that they're probably too expensive for my needs, and I'm unlikely to need to (or be able to afford to) buy extra lenses and things.

I would, however, like to experiment with filters, and I'd like something with a wide zoom, plenty of features, good build quality, the ability to adjust shutter speed, etc.

A friend has the Olympus C8080, and I've had a play around with that and really like it, so I guess something like that would be ideal. I've also been looking at the Nikon 8700, which looks like it might be good. However, the same friend says that as these cameras are now two years old, they might have been superseded by better, perhaps smaller models. He also says that they have slow response times when pushing the shutter, and that the 8700 doesn't have a very wide lens (something I'm looking for).

I've seen a second-hand 8700 on eBay for 300 pounds sterling, the 8080 for about 350. I wouldn't want to pay any more than that (ideally no more than 300).

Does anyone have any suggestions for cameras I should look at?

Personally, in this genre of digicam, I prefer the Minolta A2. 2 years ago, I shot a whole High School football season (American Football, don't you know) and they went to win the state championships. It was one of my images that made it to the local paper, and one of my images that was given each and every player after the final win.

http://ziggy53.smugmug.com/photos/90206651-L.jpg

Your friend is right in that there are three types of lag with these cameras:

1) Startup, how long does it take before the camera is ready to shoot?
2) Display lag, since there is no optical viewfinder, how long does it take to present the image to the viewfinder or LCD?
3) Shutter lag, how long is it between when you push the shutter until you actually acquire the image.

The A2 has a very decent startup time of 3 seconds, display lag is very good to excellent in Smooth, 60fps display mode, and the shutter lag is 2/10th sec when pre-focussed. For sports I would get a general frame in the LCD and then "sight" over the camera to pan/tilt with the action, partially depressing the shutter to pre-focus. When my eyes saw something interesting, I hit the shutter.

The A2 was the only digicam in its class that had built-in Anti-Shake (the later A200 also has AS.) It also had a PC flash connector with 250v isolation, so it worked well with older flash and even studio flash.

When coupled with a vertical grip and a flash handle bracket, it even looked special.

The optional accesory lenses are very high quality. The ACT-100 yields the equivalent to 300mm on the long end, while the ACW-100 gives around 22.5mm wide angle equivalent. The CL49-200 close-up accesory lens provides an equivalent to 1:1 macro and is very high quality, designed to optically couple only to the Minolta DiMage 5, 7, 7ug, 7i, 7Hi, A1, A2 and A200 cameras (they all share the same lens design.) The anti-shake also works in macro mode, something truly unique.

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=251473&postcount=34

Reviews:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/a2.html
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/konicaminoltaa2/
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/minolta/dimage_a2-review/

ziggy53