I have a headache now

[Macguy59]

after spending an hour looking through digicam review sites :? My sister asked me for a recommedation for a 3.2MP camera. After an hour I still have no clue which to recommend. Picture quality is the most important to her followed by optical zoom. Is there a site out there that has like a top 10 of 3.2 MP cameras or a Best Buy kind of thing for them? Thanks

[Lotto]

They had a segment on the local news here that Consumer Reports just did a large comparison of 60 different digital cameras. There is a fee to view the Consumer Reports site though.

http://www.consumerreports.org/main/home.jsp?bhfv=6&bhqs=1

There are some comparisons here:

http://www.consumersearch.com/www/photo_and_video/digital_cameras/

[Gary Sheynkman]

Well before Lee gets here :lol:

Does she care what type of memory it uses.....and most importantly:

I'd look in price ranges rather than by megapixels.

Give me a price range and I will narrow it down to 2-3 cameras for ya (you can PM me if anything) :wink:

[Gary Sheynkman]

PS: where in IL are you? :wink:

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Well, I'm sure there's a top 10 in sales volume, but if you're looking at the best 10 cameras, I have to say that nowadays it's very much a personal preference.

I'd say try the following (in no particular order)

1. Canon S1 IS
2. Minolta Z1
3. Olympus C760
4. Fuji S5000

If you want something smaller

1. Canon IXUS IIs (SD something in the US, think it's 110)
2. Nikon 3700
3. Fuji 420
4. Olympus mju 300
5. Pentax Optio S
6. Casio Exlim Z3 (similar, but not the same, as the Pentax)

[Macguy59]

PS: where in IL are you? :wink:

Central IL near the University of Illinois campus. Price wise she is looking for something under $400

[Suhit Gupta]

If picture quality is most important to you, then I think you should exclude the Casio Exilim Z3 from the list that Lee has put up. The Z3, IMO, always took slighly grainy pictures. In fact I have always found the Canon Powershot series to be extremely solid camera in terms of picture quality. I currently have the S300 while my officemate has the S330 so I have had a chance to play with them both. Since neither is currently sold (unless you find old stock which is very possible), I would recommend the SD110 (http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/sd110/index.html).

Now, your next criteria is zoom. In most 3MP point-and-shoot cameras, I have really not seen anything more than a 3x optical zoom (forgetting digital zoom, on account of it being an evil statistic). The SD110 unfortunately only does 2x optical zoom. So maybe you should check out the Nikon line which is also quite solid.

Suhit

[backpackerx]

Doesn't Olympus have a nice 3.2 MP with a 10x optical zoom that is reasonably priced? As far as I know, that's the only consumer 3.2 camera with above a 4x zoom.

I agree with the powershot recommendations. I'd look for the Canon A70 (I have it) online for $230 to $240. Or for 4MP try the Canon A80. These both have good manual control features but if she's just looking for a simple point and shoot then there may be better values with less features out there.

[Jon Westfall]

I know there are kodak haters and kodak lovers out there, so please, no flaming:

My mother and girlfriend both own Kodak CX6330's. Its a 3.1 megapixel, but if you can live with a .1 decrease in megapixel, its pretty reasonably priced and takes pretty good pictures.

[Littleshmee]

http://www.megapixel.net gives numerical ratings, as well as in-depth reviews. I searched for 3 megapixel cameras, and came up with 67 reviews. 8O

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Numerical ratings are meaningless. Where is the bias in the ratings? Towards image quality, ease of use, egronomics, photography usage?

Take the Canon G1/G2 cameras for example. Highly rated, but I didn't like them because of really terrible egronomics, and I didn't take long to strike them out from the list when I was looking at a digital camera. To me it scores a 3/10. To those who stare at resolution charts and spec sheets all day it might rate a 9/10.

[Macguy59]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations and links. Much appreciated :D

[Littleshmee]

The numerical ratings are broken down into 2 categories, Functionality and Photo Quality, and those categories are further reduced to 5 subcategories (including ergonomics, indoor and outdoor photo quality, battery life, etc). So while I agree that some numerical ratings can be useless (CNET's, for example) I think Megapixel's system is pretty good.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

I suppose it's better, but not entirely the best. Don't forget reviewers bias. Also photo quality has way too many variables to be condensed into a single number.