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Cameras

A Canon EOS 620 35mm and Nikon Zoom-Touch 800 served us well until their collective sale in 2002, but our digital cameras now are the tools of choice.

I traded off the 1 megapixel Kodak DC-260 for the 2.1 megapixel Olympus C-2100 UZ "Ultra Zoom" (upper right) 10x optical zoom in October 2000. In late 2002 the 3 mp C-2100 UZ was replaced by the C-730 UZ. In the spring of 2005 there are six UZ models from the 730 to the 770; on this page select the category "Digital Cameras", add the cameras and compare the features. The UZ-series were the only 10x optical zoom cameras in the consumer market; Canon and probably other manufacturers are now realizing they missed this piece of the consumer market.

In late May 2002, the Sony DSC-F707 (left) 5 megapixel 5x optical zoom was added to the stable, when Olympus was slow to upgrade its C-2100 UZ. (The -F717 and now the current -F828 supercede the F-707).

The Canon EOS-20D is our first digital SLR, acquired in December 2004 from The Photo Center near Brick, on the Jersey shore. (Tell Jeff we sent you.) Two IS lenses cover 17 to 300 mm, with a 1.6 multiper factor from the -20D body. The camera options are many; I found the Blue Crane Digital training video "Introduction to the Canon 20D Digital SLR" to be well worth the money, and each time I play it I pick up a new "so that's what they meant in the manual..." idea.

Click on the images for details; the links go to the current camera models. For editing, Adobe Photoshop completes the toolbox.

Are you buying a camera? See the links page for review sites and magazines. We buy some of our digital cameras from PC Connection/GovConnection. Are you in driving range of Brick, NJ, at the east end of I-195? When sales staff and managers at Cameras Etc in Delaware didn't return phone calls when I was about to make a 4-figure cash purchase, recommendations of The Photo Center proved to be right for me. It was so right that I reinstated their Web presence when their ISP closed its doors at the height of the Chistmas 2004 shopping season. A full Web site is under construction.

I have just a couple of comments if you are just starting to look. (1) The more megapixels, the better; whereas 1 or 2 will be fine for Web work and 5x7-inch prints, 4 or 5 is better for 8x10 prints. (2) When looking at zoom specifications, and everything else is equal, choose the camera with the greater optical - not digital - zoom. (3) When pricing cameras, shop carefully as not all cameras include rechargeable batteries; batteries, a recharger and a larger-capacity memory storage card can add more than US$100 to the quoted "sale" price.