Hullo Capt'n. Here are the top-of-the-list things I'd look for if I were in the market for a new digital camera right now -
Number 1, 2, 3: a good lens
Number 4, 5, 6: at least 2 megapixel CCD
Optical zoom, preferably 3x
Focus/exposure lock (half-press button etc)
Compact flash storage (type II if possible)
Small form factor/light camera
OK for cold, wet/hot, dusty conditions
Cheap, because it might break
Of course you can't have all of them in a single camera...
Nikon has really good lenses. Sony uses Zeiss lenses that I understand are good. The Canon Elf apparently doesn't have quite as good a lens. Olympus is another company that has good lenses.
I don't know much about the quality of the various CCDs beyond that for $500 you'll definitely get two megapixels.
The Canon Elf is a sweet form factor for climbing, and has an extra bonus: For $50 you can get a see-through box on it that makes it waterproof down to 3 feet, dustproof, even insulates a little bit against cold/heat. That's pretty neat. The Nikon Coolpix 775 also has a very nice form factor, but Nikon doesn't sell a nice box like that for the Elf. Darn, eh.
Sony uses those @#$% memory sticks which is stupid and locks you in to using Sony only. Compact flash is much better, it lets you share the cards between lots of devices from various manufacturers (and comes in large sizes). Compact flash type II rocks - that lets you use IBM microdrives which you will have a really hard time filling even if you snap all day. You'll pay more than $500 for a camera that takes type II though - the Nikon Coolpix 995 is somewhere between $700 and $1000. Another nice thing about these Nikons is that they take adapter lenses.
I have an older Nikon, the Coolpix 950. It's a 2.1 megapixel camera and much more durable than I anticipated when I bought it - I took it to the summit of Rainier 10 days ago and it worked fine; it was cold enough that my film camera malfunctioned. I did keep it inside my fleece jacket and in the sleeping bag at night.
If you're shopping for a bargain, earlier this week I heard on the radio that one of the downtown photo shops is selling the 950 for ~ $500. That's a neat price - they're $700 most places and I paid between $900-1000 two years ago. I don't remember which store though but I guess you could make some phonecalls to find out.
Does anyone have experience with Olympus digital cameras? Does Olympus have a small form factor camera, like the Elf and the Coolpix 775?
Cheers/stebbi
