Re: Digital Camera Advice

Posted by Laszlo on Feb 1, 2005

Terry,

I have an Olympus C3030Z for snapshots and a Pentax *ist-D for advanced stuff.

The Olympus is getting a little long in the tooth in terms of features (3.3 megapixel, 3x optical zoom and only 128 MB per card), but it does a very good job for snapshots and trip pictures. The main thing that Olympus did right was to carefully match the digital and optical characteristics to each other. It works well enough that I have no interest in replacing it with a more modern snapshot camera. Since all the modern cameras exceed the C3030Z's megapixels, I'd say that the thing to look for would be optical zoom and the careful matching of the optics and electronics so you don't end up with "empty" zoom. As a personal note, I also like big wide lenses so that I can take flashless pictures.

The Pentax has the advantage that we can use our existing Pentax lenses, telescope & microscope adapters, etc. It can give better pictures in more demanding conditions, but it is a bit of overkill for snapshot & trip pictures. It's also expensive enough that I wouldn't want to risk it out on the water, whereas I've taken the Olympus out on very still waters (and into volcanoes).

Have fun clicking,

Laszlo

In Response to: Digital Camera Advice by terry on Feb 1, 2005

Replies:

• Re: Digital Camera Advice by terry on Feb 1, 2005
  • Re: Digital Camera Advice by Doug Judd on Feb 1, 2005
    • Re: Digital Camera Advice by Laszlo on Feb 1, 2005
      • Re: Digital Camera Advice by terry on Feb 1, 2005
        • Re: Digital Camera Advice by Tony Calvert on Feb 1, 2005