A different digital camera question...EASY and inexpensive a possibility?

[mama2galpals]

hi i just want something that is the easiest to use and nothing fancy? this is for a first time user.


rita
mommy to
olivia 2/7/97
stella 9/24/00
emma 1/23/03

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
--Henry David Thoreau

http://lilypie.com/baby3/030123/3/4/1/+10/.png

[jvorhis]

We have a Kodak CX 7430 that we got at Walmart for under 200.00. It works great for us. It takes nice pictures and is reallly easy to use.

[HelenD]

My suggestion is to figure out how much you want to spend, then go to whatever local store (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Ritz) write down what they offer in your price range, then go to Amazon.com and look up those cameras and read the reviews. There are other camera review sites that are more detailed, but...the amazon.com and epinions.com reviews tend to be pretty accurate.

My experience is that if you try to go by price on a website w/out already having some pre existing candidates in mind, you get overwhelmed.

I just ordered a Canon A95 it was a little over $300 BUT it's a 5 megapixel, so if I want enlargements (up to 8 x 10) I can have them and have them look good.

Helen.

[tny915]

Another vote for the Kodak Easyshare line of cameras. We have a very old version of this camera from 2 years ago. It's about the size of my old film camera, but more recent versions of this camera may be more compact. It's a very basic camera with a lot of options for only $100.

http://tinyurl.com/5uecx

The Easyshare software that comes with the camera is wonderful for someone just starting out since it has cropping and basic photo editing built right in. VERY user friendly. You can also print or share your photos online directly from the camera software with just a click of a button.

Most people out there have cameras with 4 megapixels or more, but we've still been happy with this 3.2MP one. We print 4x6 and 5x7 both at home and through ofoto.com and are happy with them. You can also take short movies with this camera although the quality's not that good, but it's good enough for us so we've yet to buy a camcorder.

Edited for grammar

[Kate888]

I did a lot of research last year and finally bought a Kodak Easy Share DX 7440. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00022AH6I/qid=1108676973/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1_etk-photo/103-3791334-5151041?v=glance&s=photo&n=502394

The camera is not as compact as a Sony. However, it's super easy to use (very important to me) and takes BEAUTIFUL pictures. The colors are excellent, very rich. It has 4MP and 4x optical zoom, so the picutre quality is comparable to a digital camera with 5MP and 3x optical zoom. It also has movie mode with audio and a big LCD screen. The battery life is very good too!

I agree with the PP that if you want user-friendly cameras, Kodak is one of the best.

HTH :)

Kate
Mama to Maya 2-17-02 and Polo (my big black dog http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/dog.gif
and baby "bubble" (a BOY) due 5-11-05
http://lilypie.com/days/050511/0/12/1/-5/.png (http://lilypie.com)

[VenusElon]

I agree. I also got the 7430 for Christmas, and I love it! I have no electronic skills, and this camera is so easy to use. Just keep it on auto, and hit the button. When you want to print, put it on the port and hit print. That's it. I just learned how to save favorites and burn photos to a CD. The instructions are super easy. You might want to increase the memory though. I did that and also use this as my instant video camera. I put it on my calendar to download photos on the 31st of each month. My old camera died and I went four months without photos-last month I took 250, and printed the best 25.

Venus
Mom to JT (10/02)

[mama2galpals]

the kodak sounds like exactly the type of thing i'm looking for. something easy and relatively inexpensive. i will definitely check it out when i go to target tomorrow. thanks!



rita
mommy to
olivia 2/7/97
stella 9/24/00
emma 1/23/03

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
--Henry David Thoreau

http://lilypie.com/baby3/030123/3/4/1/+10/.png

[mama2galpals]

jenn,

your avatar picture of emma is sooo adorable!



rita
mommy to
olivia 2/7/97
stella 9/24/00
emma 1/23/03

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
--Henry David Thoreau

http://lilypie.com/baby3/030123/3/4/1/+10/.png

[rupptopia]

I'm a Canon fan myself (we have 2 Canon cameras & a printer) but have heard good things about the Kodak products too.

When I was researching, this is the best website I found for unbiased reviews:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/

Michelle
Mom to Alex born 9/28/04

[cartuin]

We just bought the Kodak 7430 and love having it. I also bought the camera dock which makes it easy to transfer pictures and it recharges the camera which is so handy. I haven't printed any pictures yet but am hoping to do so soon.

[quikeye]

I love my Canon powershot, I have an older one (s200)-- the tiny cigarette sized box one (sorry, cant think of another comparison now). It's awesome, point & shoot but easy. But the best thing is its size-- I carry it with me a LOT since it can fit into my jeans pocket, where I couldn't fit the kodak. I bought it at about 250 years ago, thye have comparable models that are much better than mine now at that and lower price points. I guess the comparable one to mine would be the canon sd200.

It's also relatively simple to get pics form the camera to your pc (don't need a seperate dock)-- you could just buy a usb card reader for about $5-10 if you didn't want to hook the camera up to the computer w/ the supplied cord. By using the card reader, your PC thinks the media card is another drive on your computer; just highlight & select all pictures, cut and paste into a folder on your PC. Easy peasy-- don't need sepcial software and it's drag & drop simple when you cut out the camera's cord.

Also-- don't take "digital zoom" into account when purchasing, imo. Look & compare only to optical zoom (which is a true zoom, when the lens moves). Digital zoom is like what you do with editing software on your computer, except the camera does it. Digi zoom lowers the quality of the pic and you can't recover it when shooting with it. I just disbale digi zoom and edit at home on my pc instead. That way I always have as perfect as an image as I could get, and then can "save as" and mess w/ zooming if I want later (I never really do though).

[mama2galpals]

great. VERY informative!

rita
mommy to
olivia 2/7/97
stella 9/24/00
emma 1/23/03

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
--Henry David Thoreau

http://lilypie.com/baby3/030123/3/4/1/+10/.png

[mama2galpals]

Your input has been great. I have not had a chance to look at the camera IRL but am going to do so this week. I'm leaning toward the Kodak just for ease of use. I appreciate it :)




rita
mommy to
olivia 2/7/97
stella 9/24/00
emma 1/23/03

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
--Henry David Thoreau

http://lilypie.com/baby3/030123/3/4/1/+10/.png

[rupptopia]

Yeah, I love that one. I always try to buy digital camera things through his links b/c I find the his site so helpful.

There is also a message board section with all sorts of info about what manufacturers are coming out with next. I held off buying my photo printer for a month and got a newer, better model for the same money - I would have never known otherwise. Looks like folks there are as obsessed about the latest & greatest digital stuff as we are about baby stuff!! :)