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I recommend a Canon. I've always got excellent pictures from Canons, and never had any technical issues. They're also not that expensive.
At the moment I have a 3MP Minolta DiMAGE Xg which I'm happy with, though. It takes slightly worse pictures than my old S200, even though they're larger, but it's got a number of form features that
- very very small and light
- 3x optical zoom that doesn't require the lens to poke out (it's got a cunning periscope arrangement)
- very fast startup time - turn it on and you can take pics in half a second
- uses SD cards, which I prefer because my other gadgets use them as well
- takes good video (at 160x120 or 320x240, and 15fps or 30fps) and more importantly takes it almost indefinitely. Many cameras conk out after 30 seconds, buffer issues I assume, this one doesn't.
- also records audio, and audio notes on individual photos, which is a fantastic little feature
Actually there's not much point going over the whole thing, I've written about it in my blog at greater length if anyone's interested.
Generally I'm an opportunistic point-and-shooter who takes a lot of pictures of all sorts of random things in all sorts of environments, and thus my primary need is for a camera that's there. A picture that you take is always better than a picture you don't take because you left your camera at home or couldn't get it focussed quick enough. I have ended up taking a lot more video than I'd have thought I would; that would be a concern for me.
I have a Canon Elura 50 DV cam as well, which is also very small (for a camcorder). I sometimes use that to take stills, though the quality is not amazing, because it has a 10x optical zoom and anti-shake thing. Given the price though if you primarily want to take stills it's not that good a solution.
Really, I don't think in terms of cameras any more, I think in terms of A/V experience recording devices. |
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