Best bang-for-buck digital camera

[josh6079]

A co-worker of mine wants to get his son a digital camera. It won't be used for anything else but taking pictures with friends and family and will rarely need the pictures printed on a home printer. He says they'll take it to a photo center to print pictures when they really like them.

What would be a quality, easy to use camera that's around $200 or less for him? (Note that the $200 is probably the most he'd be willing to spend.)

 

[myocardia]

This is the cheapest I'd go with: Samsung 6 megapixel, depending on the kid's age. How old?

 

[josh6079]

His son is 18 years old.

 

[A5]

The Canon A550 can be had for $150 at Amazon, and the Nikon Coolpix L12 can be had for $170 at Amazon as well. I know nothing about the cameras myself, but either one of those would be a good place to start looking. The Panasonic Lumix cameras are also good ones to look at.

 

[slpaulson]

I'd look at a Fuji F20.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: cRazYdood
I'd look at a Fuji F20.

I just ordered one of these based on postings at Steves-digicams and discussions on that forum. Steve rated it as a top model. $149 at B&H or $187ish for a case and 1GB xD card too. Newegg had them last week, but they dropped from the list on Wednesday (the newer 40 and 30 with face recognition are out for more $).

Edit - image stabilization, long battery life on the rechargeable battery, low light goodness, and a 21' flash range. Pretty kick butt.

 

[BladeVenom]

If you're trying to save money, buying a camera that uses proprietary flash memory cards that cost over twice as much doesn't make sense to me. I'd avoid Fuji, Olympus, and Sony. Besides Canon and Nikon are usually better.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
If you're trying to save money, buying a camera that uses proprietary flash memory cards that cost over twice as much doesn't make sense to me. I'd avoid Fuji, Olympus, and Sony. Besides Canon and Nikon are usually better.

Even xD is cheap these days.

 

[SonicIce]

I'd go for A560. Or A630 because it has 1/1.8" image sensor. Or one of the ones with optical image stabilization.

 

[josh6079]

The man is partial to Canon's because that's the brand of camera his father would always use, but he's in no way "attached" to the make. If there's another brand that's a better deal he wouldn't hesitate.

If you're trying to save money, buying a camera that uses proprietary flash memory cards that cost over twice as much doesn't make sense to me.

Hmmm. I suppose if the memory card(s) come with the camera it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but I see your point.

I'd go for A560. Or A630 because it has 1/1.8" image sensor.

Both of those look really nice but are towards the peak of his spending limit, especially when adding the cost of a memory card. (At least from what I've seen).

The Samsung S630 mentioned earlier seems to be a good price for the mega pixels and gives a little room for the spending of more memory. However, I'm not familiar with brand quality in this field and I don't know if Samsung makes very good cameras. I don't want him to be stuck with a broken camera a year down the road.