Looking To Buy Digital Camera

[Photo-John]

Unfortunately, no $200 camera is going to be good in low light. In fact, no camera is inherently good in low light. Light is what makes cameras go. So the more you have the better. And as far as point-and-shoot cameras go, the Canon SD's are about as good as it gets when it comes to image quality. Sony would be my second choice if low light and general image quality are top priorities. But don't expect any camera to really work well at night or at the club. She's gonna have to learn some tricks to get the most out of it. But we can help with that :-)

[iamloco187]

i was looking at this camera originally canon SD1100 and other cannons like SD870 so do you think one of those is a good choice or should i go for a sony which of these sonys are better W120 or W150

[byjamesderuvoDHQ]

That's not entirely accurate, PhotoJohn. The problem isn't price, the problem is buying into the "more megapixels is better" myth. It isn't. I came across an interesting article today about how more mega pixels is not necessarily a good thing. According to Image Engineering – a company that does testing of digital cameras for photo magazines in Germany – the quality of digital pictures has steadily decreased since the state of the art was six megapixels back in 2004. And because they don’t have a “dog in this hunt,” they put forth a compelling argument for buying new digital cameras with less mega pixels and not more.

The argument is essentially this: CCD chips on point and shoot cameras a smaller and as such, fitting in more pixels causes them to lose light sensivity. Sure, there’s more data on the chip, but the chip can’t absorb the light data and what it ends up with is a picture that has more noise than image quality. In addition, the more megapixels a camera has, the larger the lens it needs to provide the clarity it deserves and prevent diffraction due to a loss of detail with smaller apertures. But since we’re talking portable point and shoots here, those large lenses simply aren’t being made.

Finally, with larger mega pixels comes longer saving time due to their requires huge storage capacity, or more compression if not storing images in RAW format. The result is a noisier image and a dissatisfied camera user who thirsts for high quality and speed but fell into the trap of "more must mean better."

In the end, relying on a smaller MP that can balance all these needs may indeed be a better answer.

We do agree on the SD line, however.

Unfortunately, no $200 camera is going to be good in low light. In fact, no camera is inherently good in low light. Light is what makes cameras go. So the more you have the better. And as far as point-and-shoot cameras go, the Canon SD's are about as good as it gets when it comes to image quality. Sony would be my second choice if low light and general image quality are top priorities. But don't expect any camera to really work well at night or at the club. She's gonna have to learn some tricks to get the most out of it. But we can help with that :-)

[dougw5]

iamloco187 - I have a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS and am very pleased with it. It has many good features such as: good quality 3 inch LCD screen, image stabilization, good video, convenient size for pocket portability, user friendly displays, ample manual settings to cover a wide range of photographic situations.

[Photo-John]

I understand that more pixels isn't necessrily a better thing. I meant more light is better - not more pixels. Although, as more pixels are added, noise reduction technology has improved as well. I've actually been surprised how image quality has managed to improve with more pixels. Case-in-point - with 50% more pixels on the same size sensor, the 12-megapixel Canon PowerShot SD950 IS shouldn't be as good as the 8-megapixel SD850 IS. But it is. If you you look at images from both at 100%, you can see the noise levels are pretty much exactly the same. Furthermore, with more pixels, the SD950 IS effectively minimizes the noise that is there, delivering better image quality. I've never bought into the "more pixels is better" marketing hype. But when it works, it is a good thing. And I've been pretty impressed with the improvements in the past couple of years. The year or two before 2007, I wasn't so impressed. But digital cameras introduced since the spring of 2007 have generally surprised me.