What brand of Digital Camera or Camcorder should I buy?

I need to buy a digital camera or camcorder.
I went to Walmart to see what was available. They all looked quite nice except for the big giant SONY logo that was on most of them.
There was a sony model there that was just fine for what I need and it was $350.00 and I would have bought it on the spot if it had been made by a reputable company.

Sony and Samsung are banned. What brand should I get?

The saleslady told me to buy a FUJI but that they have not sold Fuji models for a while.

> Why do you want a camera?
To take pictures

> What would you do with a camcorder?
Make videos of Amiga games. Specifically Total Chaos AGA.

I actually own a Sony camcorder from about 2000. It is a Hi-8mm. Very nice camcorder, never given me any problem. Too bad it is not digital. Maybe I could just film an Amiga game with my old analog camcorder and route the S-video output into a PC video capture card but I assume that going that route would be a pain and make blurry video?

Many years ago I was heavily into photography. I do care about quality. I used to own an Olympus OM-10 35mm and an antique studio camera that a relative gave to me that used HUGE film. The antique camera took BY FAR the best pictures with the best resolution and color.

I don't know jack about modern digital cameras or camcorders. So I ask my trusted friends at AmigaWorld.net

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Total Chaos AGA

@ChaosLord

I went from a 3 Megapixel camera from Fuji where if you didn't hold the camera steady then you would get a blury picture to a 6.1 Megapixel A540 Poweshoot camera from Canon where it kind of autocorrects. 2 Megapixel cameras (or modes) are great if you want to hide blemishes but if you want to use editing software, you can go with a 6.1 megapixel camera or greater. Everything is changing so what I'm using is probably obsolete. If you get a really big SD card or CF card, they can hold thousands of pictures before you download them. We don't really want a camera with more megapixels because we don't want any more detail for taking personal pictures.

I suggest you get a couple of hard drives because these videos take up a lot of room and the bigger resolution pictures take up space. Under DSL I had to wait minutes to email them to people but they are gone and I hardly notice the transfer under FIOS.

@ChaosLord
I would search up some reviews if i were you. It also depends on what you need.. Do you want just a point and shoot camera or also one that let you set camera settings manually?

About the camcorder.. I would rather get a tvtuner/capture card and record amiga videos that way. It will both be easier and quality will be alot better compared to filming the monitor/tv.

@ChaosLord

I own a cybershot camera, and can confirm that it works with amiga OS4.1 and onwards.

Unfortunately it is a sony.

Samsung, the last one I had died, hence the recent cybershot camera.

Fuji FIlm, also had ne before the samsung, also died.

Both Samsung and fuji film were great for the duration of my use, and they died through the user being somewhat careless once the camera became older.

My cybershot has a small sony logo, if you change your mind, and I picked it up for way less than $350 AUD, and is 10.1 megapixel, has video capability, etc. picked it up for 150, everything included, case, battery, 2gb sd, etc.

If I were you and you want to avoid sony at all costs, Id go canon personally, but thats me.

That is what most shops were saying when I was thinking of getting a camera, get CANON or SONY, i figured that I have a sony Playstation, may as well stick with that family brand.

Cheers

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@Gebrochen
I bought one of those sony cybershots as well... Was so unhappy with it that i returned it a few days later and got a cheap canon instead. The canon was both a bit cheaper, had longer battery capactiy and more manual settings.

@ChaosLord

I recently attended a course nat Panasonic UK with the company I work for and I can recommend Panasonic Digital Cameras and camcorders to you without hesitation. We used 3 or 4 of them during the day, from the bottom end models, lumix models and the G1 and they were excellent. Panasonic are quite new to the market in cameras but in my opinion have features in their cameras which make them superior to established companys in the market such as cannon. If money is an issue Panasonic offer alot of quality for a good price, even in the lower price bracket. The same goes on the camcorders. Check them out!! By the way, I do not work for Panasonic, I attended a course 3 months ago which covered cameras, camcorders, dvd, blu-ray, tv etc.

Have fun

@Tomas

?????????????/

Well, I recharged my battery the moment I got the camera, went to tasmania for 6 days, and still had battery life, thats inclusive of many video footage.

reliable its been thus far for me,

But yeah, Ive owned a few camera brands, and I must say, overall, I think ive had some luck in this field with reliability, where others have failed with the same type of cameras.

cheers

P.S. What canon model you own?

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Flex is 800mhz
A1000 with Classic 520 Amiga OS3.2.1
AmiKit 12
MorphOS PowerBook G4 (which can play youtube vids)

https://blitterwolf.blogspot.com

@ChaosLord

The one they used to shot avatar?

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retired

@ChaosLord
Quote:

Sony and Samsung are banned. What brand should I get?

Camera's make a poor investment as a new model with more features comes out each year.
I would focus on the Lens not the mega pixels. You wish to change lenses or point and shoot?

IMHO, a closeout of last year's models is a decent buy. Tons of those on the market and most are all good.

Btw: been buying Canon for years.
Powershot S3IS is a great Camera but its replacement is even better for the price. I paid alot for this camera looking at the lower price of its replacement.

Last edited by Interesting on 04-May-2010 at 02:44 PM.

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@Interesting

I personally prefer Olympus slr cameras
very Good and NOT to expensive

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@ChaosLord

For the photo camera I am pretty pleased with my rather simple Samsung one. But you ruled out Samsung, so... And that particular model has high demands to the batteries. I had pretty nice experience with nikon (the cheap and the expensive). I think nikon may not always be "the" bargain but it is difficult with them to make a bad deal either.

For the video thing: I recently bought an Apitek h5 extreme. I was hesitating very much, since i don't trust Aiptek (or any el cheapo brand in general). But I was thinking of what I am going to do with it and came to the conclusion that it is nothing to advanced, but rather simple and thus decided to give the cheap camara a go. And I am very pleased by it. It is conveniently to use, the picture quality is fairly okay, the battery lasts quite long.
Only downsides: poseidon doesn't properly support it (it gets listed and I can access the directories, but copy fails) and the used h.264 codec is a bit problematic (each frame 3 byte longer than MPlayer expects), hence there are little slow downs when replaying the video (the 720p videos of that cam do not replay at 100% speed, but a bit below on my 1.5 GHZ Mac mini/MorphOS). The MPlayer version on my Eee (dunno the version) fails completely (only sound gets replayed).
But all in all a great purchase for that little money. Can kind of recommend it (as long as your video demands are rather basic).

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@ChaosLord,

I also have an Olympus. I has served me well for at least 5 years. Built well.

Chris

@thread

Any new recommendations in the last 4 years?

I see you can now get more storage, internal thumb s/w, larger optical zoom levels, 1080p, and so much more as almost standard since 2010.

#6

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I use a Nikon compact. Has stereo HD recording on it too which I have done lots of recording for youtube on.

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Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@thread

The key to buying a an image recording device is the lens system a.k.a. the glass. From smartphones, through compact point-and-shoot cameras, and all the way up to interchangeable lens cameras, the type and quality of glass will outweigh the amount of megapixels in most shooting modes/settings.

Since almost every digital photo camera can shoot video, and since almost every digital video camera can take photos one should take into account what they are planning to do more of, as in most cases the body style is ergonomically aligned to the task.

Digital Photography
In the sub-$300 range I would go with a Panasonic or Sony (mega-zoom) compact.
In the mirror-less DSLR range I would go with any micro 4/3 system, Olympus or Panasonic. Whether it be the more compact bodies or the larger more professional bodies.
In the mirror based, full-frame DSLR range I would go with Canon or Sony. In both the semi-pro or pro bodies and lenses.

Digital Video
For pretty much all price/feature categories I would go with either Canon or Sony; everyday camcorder, amateur filmmaker/video blogger, semi-professional, professional/4K.
There are only a few important mentions here:
1) The best all-rounder amateur filmmaker/video blogger camera is the JVC GC-PX100B. Rare, and you should grab one if you you're looking to get into this kind of videography.
2) The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. 1080p with micro 4/3 lens system. Amateur filmmaker's dream.
3) The Panasonic GH4 micro 4/3 DSLR shoots 4K video and has an optional professional interface kit for professional filmmakers.
4) The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K.
5) The GoPro range for action shooting.

Whilst the camera brands and models listed above are standouts in their respective categories it is important to understand that in most cases they are only marginally ahead of products from other notable and respected brands such as Nikon, Ricoh, Fuji, Pentax, Samsung, etc.

Last edited by agami on 15-Aug-2014 at 03:44 AM.

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ChaosLord wrote:
Quote:

What brand of Digital Camera or Camcorder should I buy?

Go to the public library and look through the latest issues of Consumer Reports magazine.

That's what I would do,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

@number6

I dont know much about this subject at all and I havent been interested in learning about it either, hence I have tried to find out how to buyu good one withoutgetting into it much, and here is how it seems to me.

1. There is a local photgrapher who is professional photographer and almost retired by now. It was maybe 3 years ago he got invite to european wide photography content with (i think) 400 other contestants. It was invite only contest. And he won it. Hence he has some merit when he said to me that when he last time bought digital camera 1 year ago, it is so good camera, that it is the last camera he will ever need (although i think he will anyway buy another at some point) and he also commented that he uses it as a camcorder as well.

That in his opinion there is no point in buying camcorders anymore, since Digicams are better at recording videos than camcorders.

He is of course talking of professional ones, but i think that cameras price was only 2 000 Euros or something like that, which tells that it wont be long before this will eb true for consumer versions as well.


2. It seems there are two ways to go, 1 - you can get camera where you can change your optics (ie. wider optic, narrower optic etc.) and have lots of other options too, or 2 - you can look for a camera where everything is automatic and you just need to push the button.

I myself first had the automatic sony camera, and now have Canon EOS500 which has lots of options, which I have found out, that I am not interested in learning. Hence, I guess I will next time perhaps go for the automatic push button camera option again.


3. There are two thumb rules I have sort of used. 1 - Sony is never a bad choice (that local photographers comment) 2 - Vario Lens is in quite many consumer cameras a feature, and it usually is also a guarantee of quality (once again partial tip from that photographer).


as for recording Amiga games. First of all, even if they have 1080p, if you are talking of Classic Amiga games, then you dont really need that, as they are only rarely more than 640 x 512, while 1080 p is already 1920 x 1080. Even digicams that saved to floppy disks usually have at least 640 x 512 to my understanding, hence, that is not a worry in recording Classic Amiga Games.

But. you might have better choices for recording. I for example bought this 39 Euros costing system, where I can put antenna cable to Amiga, and other end to my PCs USB, and record anything on that screen.

It can also record scart, since you can get those scarts where you put those cables to that scart part.

They might not be of best quality, but they are good enough anyway. They usually refer to those as "transfer your VHS videos" equipment, but they can as well be used to record Classic Amiga Games (and i used for Nintendo 64 too).

Hence, you could perhaps think of solution like that. Set up the cables once, and they are always in place, and you can even do the same way as Angry Videogame Nerd does, that everytime he plays, he keeps recording.

@ChaosLord

If you want an intermediate level camera that is better than a cheap point-and-shoot but without the expense and giant lenses of a professional DSLR camera, I can recommend the Panasonic DMC-FZ200. It has the following advantages:

24X zoom (25-600 35mm equivalent) using a high quality Leica lens system. You get reasonable zoom without lens changing.

High resolution viewfinder. Even the brightest LCD monitor screen can be difficult to use on a bright sunny day.

Produces RAW image files in addition to JPEG files. RAW files allow you to develop the pictures yourself using programs like "dcraw" or AmiCygnix "UFRaw" on an OS4 Amiga or with included software on a PC.

You can use inteligent auto mode for simple point-and-shoot operation or the same kind of manual modes that a professional DSLR uses.

You can also record video in addition to photographs.

You can download pictures from the camera to an OS4 Amiga with USB cable.

Disadvantages:

The complete manual is PDF only; no printed manual. However a PDF manual is easier to search and can be printed and bound for about $20. The manual is a little terse so I would recommend the book: "Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 User's Manual" by Graham Houghton for novice photographers.

Some venues (like concerts) won't let you take the camera inside, whereas you can get away with taking concert photos with a small point-and-shoot.

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