As some of you may or may not know, I had a birthday just a couple days ago, and my girlfriend has known I've wanted a digital camera for some time. On Saturday she hands me $200.00 and says go buy yourself a camera, but you better not spend a dime at the GoodWill!!! Does she know me or what?? Anyway, I proceded to BestBuys hoping to look at their line of 10x zoom cameras, all they had was the Fuji Finepix S5100, not a bad camera after I messed around with it, but it wasn't impressive enough for me to buy it. The Kodak 5mp one was just out of my price range for $500.00, although the salesman said those were really nice camera's. I went to Circuit City next, and they had the Olympus CAMedia S765, and Nikon Coolpix 4800 both on my short list, both of those were really nice too, but I wanted to compare them to the Minolta DiMAGE Z2 or Z3. The Olympus seemed nice, and it is always hard to beat a Nikon, but it didn't have the manual adjustments that I wanted or a hotshoe or 10x, but close-ups were superb. I read alot about the new 10x zoom digitals and I was down to the Fuji, Nikon, Olympus and Minolta, the salesman at Circuit City actually recommended the Minolta, even though they don't even carry it!! I found that surprisingly honest, said they had the best lenses probably of the bunch. Well, I went to the Walmarts, and they had the Minolta DiMAGE Z2, but the Z3 wasn't in stock. I heard good things about both and the extra $100.00 for the Z3 with anti-shake and 12x zoom was tempting, but after fiddling around with the Minolta I asked the salesman that their website showed the Minolta for $348.00 and you have it for $397.00?? He then called the manager over and he says if I can print out the ad from the internet and bring it in, he'll match that price. Well...luckily there were no police on the roads I was on, I raced home and quickly printed the ads and came back in, and true to his word, he said give it to me for $348.00. Well, I'm now a proud owner (so far) of the DiMAGE Z2. I haven't even used all the features yet or capabilities, but I hope to be using it quite alot here in the near future. My first posts were of some of the Project One TT I scored the other day, the first two were without flash and the third with flash. One of the big features to me about the Minolta was being able to use AA batteries, and SD memory, both very common and easy to find in a pinch.

As I posted the other day in "What Digital Camera's Do You Own" I ordered a Minolta DiMAGE Z3, well it arrived today. My only real complaint is the low light level focusing, I understand this isn't uncommon. The anti-shake feature seems to work well so far, I took a couple pics at very slow shutter speeds and they came out reasonably well. I can't wait to try this in the daylight, flash indoors works great, but I do like the look of ambient light. I will try to post some pics soon.

Here are some examples of the zoom capabilities, first one is at 35mm equivalent, second is at 420mm equivalent, then the third is with 4x digital zoom which would be 1680mm equivalent :

The line in the picture is because I was taking this picture through the glass in my office, to the right is the courtyard of the Sears Tower where live bands play during the summer.

At 420mm equivalent zoom, which is 12x optical zoom on the Z3 :

At 420mm plus 4x digital, which is about 1680mm equivalent a moderate amount of noise starts to be evident, however detail is still distinguishable :

That's got some cool zoom, what about close-ups?

Here's a familiar subject, this was using some zoom at Super-Macro setting so the lens wasn't blocking the light :

This was slightly more zoom, again at Super-Macro setting, both were handheld and at about 1/40th of a second shutter, showing the advantage of the anti-shake feature :

I'm impressed! Looks like you've made the right choice.

DT, I love the picks you took of the crystal in the macro thread. Have you had any printed up yet. I am curious how they look printed on a commercial type printer, like Wal-Mart uses. Sheesh, I wish there was a way to know which camera is really the best in each price range.

VinylHanger, I'm glad you liked those pics, I should of taken one of me holding it in my hand to get a better persepctive of it's size. It's probably about 1-2" round at the top. I haven't taken any of my pics yet to a Walmarts or anyplace like that, but I have printed a few at work where we use a HP 4500 Color LaserJet, but on standard paper and they looked pretty good. I should try some with some glossy photograph quality paper in it. I probably will of my kids very soon. Good luck with your camera shopping. Have you seen the new Minolta 7D? It uses AS but the price is higher right now than the Nikon D70. I bet if you wait until after Christmas prices will drop.

Have been in the market to replace my 4 year old Olympus digital and narrowed it down to the Canon A75 and the Nikon 3200. Am waiting for a call back from someone local who's selling his brand new Nikon for $135!! Got my fingers (and eyes) crossed.

Granted, neither of these models are super fancy but they do what I want/need...with the Nikon offering even better closeups (ideal for eBay). I welcome any comments regarding these two models. Thanks

Anthony

Before I got my birthday present, I was seriously considering one of those two models. However, both of them are 3.2 megapixels, most people recommend 4 megapixels minimum, so you can crop and still have a decent 8x10 print from it. Out of the two though it would be a tough decision, but I probably would lean more towards the Nikon but the Canon has a normally higher rating as far as reviewers go. I think the Canon is slightly more flexible in it's options than the Nikon. A friend let me test drive his Nikon for a weekend and it was a 4200 (I believe) the one thing I didn't like about it was the extremely bad battery life. Plus they don't use standard batteries so it's a little harder to find replacments.

As some of you may or may not know, I had a birthday just a couple days ago, and my girlfriend has known I've wanted a digital camera for some time. On Saturday she hands me $200.00 and says go buy yourself a camera, but you better not spend a dime at the GoodWill!!! Does she know me or what?? Anyway, I proceded to BestBuys hoping to look at their line of 10x zoom cameras, all they had was the Fuji Finepix S5100, not a bad camera after I messed around with it, but it wasn't impressive enough for me to buy it. The Kodak 5mp one was just out of my price range for $500.00, although the salesman said those were really nice camera's. I went to Circuit City next, and they had the Olympus CAMedia S765, and Nikon Coolpix 4800 both on my short list, both of those were really nice too, but I wanted to compare them to the Minolta DiMAGE Z2 or Z3. The Olympus seemed nice, and it is always hard to beat a Nikon, but it didn't have the manual adjustments that I wanted or a hotshoe or 10x, but close-ups were superb. I read alot about the new 10x zoom digitals and I was down to the Fuji, Nikon, Olympus and Minolta, the salesman at Circuit City actually recommended the Minolta, even though they don't even carry it!! I found that surprisingly honest, said they had the best lenses probably of the bunch. Well, I went to the Walmarts, and they had the Minolta DiMAGE Z2, but the Z3 wasn't in stock. I heard good things about both and the extra $100.00 for the Z3 with anti-shake and 12x zoom was tempting, but after fiddling around with the Minolta I asked the salesman that their website showed the Minolta for $348.00 and you have it for $397.00?? He then called the manager over and he says if I can print out the ad from the internet and bring it in, he'll match that price. Well...luckily there were no police on the roads I was on, I raced home and quickly printed the ads and came back in, and true to his word, he said give it to me for $348.00. Well, I'm now a proud owner (so far) of the DiMAGE Z2. I haven't even used all the features yet or capabilities, but I hope to be using it quite alot here in the near future. My first posts were of some of the Project One TT I scored the other day, the first two were without flash and the third with flash. One of the big features to me about the Minolta was being able to use AA batteries, and SD memory, both very common and easy to find in a pinch.

wow! I had no idea you were into photo stuff too.. that was such a wonderful price! happy birthday mine is tomorrow:)

I just have an old lecia lenz panny , but the telephoto is fun.I got it last year when price were still high.

always more memory! but the battery thing I like the cell I have it stays charged for 6-8 hours!
ahh.. whats it called?

but dimage is one of the only other ones that has the steady thing.. birthdays! fun.. God bless Man..

Nancy :thmbsp:

Photography was an obsession to me in high school. Luckily, my dad got into it also and is why I had access to such fine equipment F2S and F plus Nikkormat FTN, and gobs of lenses, bellows, flashes, Durst enlarger, and Cibachrome procession equipment, not to mention all my B&W stuff. When I was a junior in high school I was already doing color in my home lab. My photo teacher told me I was beyond him and just do independant study and bring in my work so he could see it. That year I won 1st place High Overall photo in our school district contest and won 2nd place in the California State Fair for Graphic Arts. Then I got out of it after everything got stolen, it was like a part of my soul was ripped from me. Now I'm just starting to get back into it, this time digitally. I find myself starting to get that bug again of wanting to just go take pictures once again :)

Leica and that stuff you have Nanc is top quality stuff. I always wanted a Leica but they were even more than Nikon was. Now Leica has that digital camera that is suppose to be excellent. I've been very pleasantly surprised with the Minolta DiMAGE Z3 really, it seems to do everything pretty well and is extremely flexible, plus the price was right. Now I'm thinking of doing some infrared with it and getting a Sigma flash for it. One thing at a time.

Regarding the suggested 4 megapixel minimum, that really isn't an issue for me as I don't intend on printing out any great quantity of photos...mostly computer and internet related stuff. The Nikon 3200 uses 2 standard AA batteries while the Canon A75 takes 4 of the same critters. Supposedly the useful battery life is the same between these two models, but obviously the Nikon is a little smaller and lighter weight.

Anywho, I got the Nikon. This thing is slicker the goose snot. It takes short movies with sound and you can actually play them back on the camera (with the sound too!). About the only feature it doesn't have that the Canon does is a menu of silly sounds (for when you push any of the buttons). There's a hilarious bunch of bird and animal sounds on the Canon which crack me up. Alas the Nikon lacks this frivolity.

Anthony

Anthony, Sounds like you did alright. The Coolpix I used had this squarish sized battery pack. I took about 15-20 pics with it before I had to recharge it, and since it was a loaner I didn't have a recharger, so I went to Walmarts and bought one, seemed I was constantly swapping it in/out of that charger. When I was done with it, I returned the charger to Walmarts. I thought it did great with picture taking. Low light peformance was probably even just a bit better than my new Minolta. It was definitely at the top of my list. Lets see some pics with it when you get a chance. :banana:

Had a request for more city shots, here is one I took at the base of the Sears Tower :

This one is across the street from the Sears Tower :

Same building but full zoom, this is the area where the five dark windows are towards the top :