Buying a camera for our next trip.

[dmosher]

My DW and I have a decent camera that has suited us well for the last few Disney trips, but we are looking at getting a new one. We are hoping to find something with a good zoom (10x or higher) nice image stabilizing and low light settings. My DW is also not trained in advanced camera settings, so something that is relatively easy to use would be great as well. Of course add in that we don't want to have to take out a loan to get the camera and it is all rather confusing. Any ideas or advice on what you have or are looking to buy would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
:pipes
D

[anlashokna]

I bought my dad a kodak z712 runs about $250 and is a 7.1 megapixel. I know they just came out with a new one that is around the 10 megapixel. Its a good camera and simple to operate. Definately go into a store and play with them to get a feel for what works best for you.

[BMan62]

I bought my dad a kodak z712 runs about $250 and is a 7.1 megapixel. I know they just came out with a new one that is around the 10 megapixel. Its a good camera and simple to operate. Definately go into a store and play with them to get a feel for what works best for you.

If you had posted this prior to Christmas, Kodak was having a sale. I upgraded my old DX4350 (5 Megapixel) Kodak EasyShare camera to a new Z812IS (8 MegaPixel with image stabilization) for $235 and they threw in a 1GB SD card and free shipping.

Then, my wife decided we needed a new video camera and bought me a REAL NICE Christmas/Birthday present - Sony 60GB HDD camcorder (DCR-SR82)

[IloveJack]

I absolutely love my Sony DSC-H7. Dh and I bought it for our trip this past July, and it was wonderful. It has a 15x optical zoom, and 8.1 MP. It's very easy to use, whether you're just "point and click", or like to change the shutter speeds, ISO, etc. It also works great for recording, and has a wonderful steadyshot setting. And it's not too big, either. I think it's about $400 at Wal-Mart, after taxes.

[Sean Riley Taylor's Mom]

I bought my dad a kodak z712 runs about $250 and is a 7.1 megapixel. I know they just came out with a new one that is around the 10 megapixel. Its a good camera and simple to operate. Definately go into a store and play with them to get a feel for what works best for you.

We bought the same Easyshare back in September when our older one broke.
How is the picture quality with yours??
We are not pleased with ours at all. Our older Easyshare took much better pictures.
We are going to get the Nikon D40 now.

Know anyone looking for a barely used Kodak Easyshare z712?? ;)

[anlashokna]

Actually his pictures came out great. He doesnt have a steady hand so the main reasons I picked it was for the stabilization and large LCD screen. Maybe you got one with a glinch?
We gave it to him as an early birthday the day we got to Disney and shot a couple of hundred pics with no problems, other than the flash popping up when he didn't want it to. Got to read the book on that.

Nikon D40 is a good way to go also. I was looking at that or the Canon Rebel EOS to replace my original digital. Have a Konica Minolta Dimage Z. Top of the line when I got it but that was 5 years ago. Time to upgrade.

It always depends on the user. Dad didn't need more than that, would be to complicated. Myself I'm the photographer in the family so I look at the bell and whistle cameras :)

[PAYROLL PRINCESS]

I was also looking for a new camera and ran into my cousin who owns a camera shop. He said to get a Canon or Olympus. I researched and Canon has just come out with a fairly new model-the Canon PowerShot SX100IS. It's 8 mp with a 10X optical zoom. It has manual settings as well as automatic. So far I love it. You have to manually push the flash up, which isn't a bad thing. It takes great inside night pix even without the flash up. It will come in handy on rides where you can't use a flash.
It's easy to up load and tweak the pix too. It was on sale at Circuit City for $249.00.

[dmosher]

We decided on the Fujifilm S8000fd. Went to the store checked it out and ... wow! Amazing camera and great stable video. Definitely recommend it! Now just have to wait for a decent sale here, then it's ours!
:pipes:
D

[magicofdisney]

The optical zoom is way better than digital zoom. The higher, the better. I own a Kodak Z7590. It has 10x optical zoom. It has digital zoom but I don't even use that. I really like it for outdoor use. The problem is it's not that great for inside, low light pics (or even far away night time pics). Of course I use the automatic controls, so someone with more experience using manual controls could probably pull off better shots. I just think this might be a problem with Kodaks in general. Unless you're planning on developing prints greater than your standard 4x6, the larger MP isn't necessary. But if the price is right, go for it. I think, for the average user, 5-6 MP is adequate.

[mrsgaribaldi]

I bought a Canon PowerShot SD850 IS 8.0 MP Digital Elph Camera with 4x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom for my DH for Christmas. I gave it to him early so we could take it on our trip to Disney World in December. We both love it. It takes awesome pictures, the fireworks came out great. It is 249.99 from Amazon. Click on the link on the left if you are going to use that site. It made me really dislike my own camera now. Someone else I know got one for Christmas and she loves it too. If you want to see some pics that we took, send me a PM and I will send you some. The night pics came out really nice even without a tripod or anything. It seems pretty simple to use too. I didn't really use it alot but I gave it to my DH at the airport and he was using it when we landed in Orlando:mickey:

[Itchy]

The first question that I would have is how big of a camera do you want.

Although you can get a small camera that takes good pictures they are not always great.

When I bought my first digital I did a lot of shopping. I was luck enough to use digitals at my job photographing crime scenes and found the SLR type take far better pic's.

I finally bought the Fuji S5100 and it is great. I paid about $250 and has a 10x zoom. I think the S6100 replaced it.

I have been able to take a lot of photos in very dark conditions and still get a good photo with out the flash. My dear lady friend just bought a Kodak easy share and even with the flash dark photos do not turn out the best. We had to use a photo program to improve them.

As an earlier post stated go to a store that you can have hands on and use the internet for review information on the ones you select.

Good luck