Digital Camera recommendations ...

[John Voigt]

On 12/22/2004 08:18 PM, Kurt Wall eloquently noted:

<snip>

> I was just admiring the Fujifilm FinePix S3100. $299 at Office Depot
> with a $100 mail-in rebate...
> 
> Kurt

Hi all,

I have a FinePix S3000 (3.2 Mpix/6x optical zoom) and it's turned out to be an 
excellent camera for the money. It appears that the S3100 is a New and 
Improved(tm) version of the S3000. I generally shoot film with an old "built 
like a tank" Canon FTb and an FT as a backup, as I really like the old manual 
SLR stuff. That said, when I bought a digital (for fun stuff mostly) I tried to 
find something reasonably-priced, and ended up with the FinePix.

Things I like:

- Very SLR-like. The viewfinder actually uses the CCD rather than a separate 
optical lens (avoids parallax). Pretty much WYSIWYG. You can easily switch 
between the viewfinder and the screen.

- Uses standard AA batteries or equivalent rechargeables.

- OS agnostic. It appears as USB mass storage.

- Compact but relatively sturdy.

- Excellent photo quality.

- Uses 'standard' XD memory cards.

- Fairly good menu system, so it's relatively easy to use without the manual.

- Will accept lens filters if needed.

- Threaded tripod mount FWIW.

Things I don't like:

- Eats batteries for lunch.

- Doesn't work very well in dark light conditions.

- No interchangeable lenses (probably not an issue at this price point)

- Filenames are always the same, so you'll need to rename the files when 
downloading them from the camera so they don't conflict with the last set.

- Probably a few other annoyances which apparently weren't significant enough 
for me to remember ;-)

Basically, I'm pretty happy with it. The upsides trump the downsides, and the 
range of options is rather impressive.

HTH,

John V.
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