Buying A Camera For My Wife...what Should I Get?

[del518]

My wife wants a new camera for X-MAS. I don't know the first thing about them. She currently has a point and shoot digital camera that is about 7 years old. She is looking for something a little more advanced than point and shoot (something she can manually focus and also has auto focus).

What is a good brand (Nikon, Canon...something else)? I am looking to spend about $600-$700 (no idea if that is too much or not enough). One more thing...it has to be relatively simple to use.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[the piper]

600-700? and people wonder why I dont own a camera... Seriously is that what the cost is now...I am sure there's lots of people that can help u here

 

[JayMann]

I have a Canon 400d DSLR few years old now i love it grate for what i do with it!

 

[yoshi1984]

$600-$700 is a good mid-range camera, like the Canon or Nikon. Personally I really like Olympus and their 4/3 sensor, it's smaller so the camera body's are smaller/lighter, give nice rich colors to the photographs, only drawback to a lot of hard core canon/nikon addicts, is because of the small 4/3 sensor size, you get bad lowlight photography, a lot of digital noise in the photo's. Similar to grain in a film camera photo but not as appealing. But film is so completely different to digital photo's but that's another whole segment in itself. Personally i would stay away from pantex, i've seen some crappy photo's from their cameras. Sony's alpha series of DSLRS' are pretty nice.

Anyway, depends on what she likes, if she' likes the well known canon / nikon name, what type of photography she does, if she does a lot of low/light photo's, or if she's more into portraits, snap-shots during vacation trips', if she's doing photography as a hobby/ fun, or if shes serious about it and going to school for it for a career maybe?

i go to DSLR Cameras to purchase camera's online, it's a NY based store.
For camera reviews, go to Digital Photography Review they do actual photo tests of each camera, scrutinize every tiny bit of a new camera, do very in depth reviews of new dslr cameras, lens reviews, etc, it's an awesome awesome site for you dude! go to it now!

I have an Olympus e-520, which got replaced with a E-620. I wouldn't pay a lot of attention to megapixle's..honestly dude, unless your some professional photographer whose going to be printing out huge enlargement's of their photo's for work, you can get by completely fine with something like 10MP, anything more is just overkill for a hobbie.
for your price range these are good camera's,
Olympus E-620: Digital Photography Review
Canon EOS Rebel T2i Digital SLR Kit w/ EF-S/18-55 IS 4462B003
Canon EOS 600D (EOS Rebel T3i / EOS Kiss X5): Digital Photography Review
Nikon D5100 Digital SLR Camera With 18-55mm VR Lens 25478 B&H
what's really become a cool feature on DSLR's is their ability to record full hd 1080p video. So it doubles as a camcorder. no need to carry a camera and a cam corder anymore.

is she familiar with DSLRS?(digital single lens reflex camera)

Olympus has their image stabilization feature built into their camera bodies as opposed to the lenses like Canon/Nikon. Few nice positive feature's of Olympus' IS, since it's built INTO the camera body, lenses are cheaper/smaller lighter. Some argue Image stabilization works better in-camera than in-lens like canon's or nikon's. Some argue that because Olympus put their IS in camera body, the start up of the camera to take a photo is a tad slower when it's on, as when it's off.

Now canon's / Nikon's argument, that in-lens IS works better than in-camera body...honestly there isn't much difference.

Problem you'll run into with canon's/nikon lenses, the IS feature's are usually reserverd for the higher end lenses, lenses are bigger bulkier/heavier because of the added IS in the lens.
image stabilization helps with low-light photography, when your hands are shaking, it prevents you from having a blurry photograph basically. These will be a bit more expensive also.
Canon has this line of what's called 'Luxury Line' of lenses, those are the lenses that can cost upwards of $1,000.

 

[yoshi1984]

I have a Canon 400d DSLR few years old now i love it grate for what i do with it!

thats a sweet camera.

 

[yoshi1984]

For lenses, try and splurge for a basic 50mm. Those offer no lens zoom distortion, perfect for snap-shots on vacation trips, for doing macro close up photography of nature/insects etc..., awesome awesome portrait lens, just your perfect all-around small lightweight lens for basic photography.
Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM Autofocus Lens 2515A003 B&H Photo Video
[URL]http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/12142-USA/Canon_2514A002_Normal_EF_50mm_f_1_8.html[/URL]

 

[JayMann]

Thanks mate... I just have the standard lens that came with me camera i don't really know all about all the settings but i know i can take a good pic seen as thou i don't really know what i'm doing! lol

 

[yoshi1984]

Thanks mate... I just have the standard lens that came with me camera i don't really know all about all the settings but i know i can take a good pic seen as thou i don't really know what i'm doing! lol

what did you want help with? i used to love photography. took a few classes...im not expert by any means but i might be able to help!

 

[JayMann]

Mate i don't even know what half the buttons on the camera are... i meed to take some classes as well but don't have the time thanks for the offer thou if i ever get stuck i'll hit you up mate.

 

[yoshi1984]

Mate i don't even know what half the buttons on the camera are... i meed to take some classes as well but don't have the time thanks for the offer thou if i ever get stuck i'll hit you up mate.

its easier to explain in person, like you said, a class is extremely helpful. I took a intro to digital photography, and one of the projects the instructor wanted us to do is take a certain number of consecutive pictures without deleting one...plus she'd know if you did since the camera keeps numerical order of each photograph you take so she'd know if you deleted one.
and then you slowly move into other modes, like S for i believe it's shutter speed mode, on how to read the light meter and how to over/under expose a photograph. I remember our instructor telling us its always better to slightly underexpose a photo than to over expose since colors are richer and its easier to fix a under exposed pic than a over exposed.
im sure your local college or school or something can offer a tutorial on photography its really fun, you learn so much. but what i learned a lot from is just photography book's for beginners.