Looking for a new digital camera..

[dawks]

My pops b-day is comming up soon, and I was considering getting him a digital camera.. From doing a small amount of research, the Canon A40 looks like a nice entry level camera..

Right now, im thinking of snapping one of those up from amazon.com Hmm they say its $279.. (just a quick note, if I do order from the web I need a fairly popular place. not all accept Canadian credit cards )


Any suggestions, comments, past experiences with this camera and/or others?

Also, what about removable media? Any companies that make better/worse cards? Right now I think I'll get a crucial.com memory card.. $40 for a 128meg card.. or $87.29 for a 256meg..

Edit: Can you save the images on the camera in .bmp? or does it have to be JPG? (And can you adjust the level of compression?)

 

[vi edit]

I think you can buy it at office depot for $299 and get a free 128 meg CF card with it. You can probably chase down a coupon or two to save $10 or $15 as well.

RossMAN, get in here!

 

[dawks]

I noticed a deal like that in a similar thread, but I thought it was a B&M deal only.. If it could be had via the net, that makes it a little more interesting..

There is a Office Depot here, but I would be curious as to if they would have the same deal cross border..

 

[UNCjigga]

Local BB has advertised the A40 at $249 after price drop. No rebates involved. I would recommend looking for a hot PM deal, or check to see if this price drop is national.

EDIT: AFAIK the Canon A40 only supports capture in JPEG mode, however the level of compression can be selected between "Regular, Fine and Superfine". "Fine" works pretty damn good for most purposes, and generates 1600x1200 JPGs that are about 500k each. Other Canon cameras support 'raw' mode image capture, however, so I wouldn't be surprised if a firmware update or 'hack' enabled this on the A40 as well.

 

[jlee]

Click. Now.

This is my thread on the A40 : link

 

[RossMAN]

Damn it took 40 minutes for my Canon A40 radar to go off, I really should have that looked at.

Excellent choice, going with the Canon PowerShot A40. Here are some reviews which I highly recommend you read:

PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS
imaging-resource.com (with sample pictures)
dcresource.com (with sample pictures)
steves-digicams.com (with sample pictures)
dpreview.com (97 owner's ratings almost 5 out of 5 stars in every category)

CONSUMER REVIEWS
ePinions.com (100% recommended by 8 reviewers)
Amazon.com (4.8 out of 5 stars with 39 customer reviews)
CNET.com (8 out of 10 stars with 95% positive reviews)

$279 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overpriced when you can buy a brand new Canon PowerShot A40 for around $200 with FREE SHIPPING and FREE 64MB or 128MB CF!!!

HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT

 

[dawks]

that deal appears to be deal..


^^^^

 

[dawks]

Can this camera be used as a webcamera also?

 

[dawks]

bump.. going shopping locally for one now..

 

[goog]

Originally posted by: DaZ
Can this camera be used as a webcamera also?

Don't think so. Mine will be here tomorrow so I'll see then how it works. Damn there are a lot of sweet US deals for this camera lately, since there coming out with a new model.

 

[jlee]

Is the shutter speed too slow for action shots? If not, I might end up getting one.

 

[dawks]

Looks like im going to get one of these cameras..

I was looking at the Specs, and saw.. Shutter Speed 15-1/1500 sec.
What does that mean?

One of the sample images was taken with a shutter speed of 1/400. How does that compare to taking a picture of high action.

And the next model up, an S200 has a sample image on that site with a 15second exposure.. can the A40 do that? I would love to try and make one of those freeway pictures, with the long string of light.

 

[vi edit]

Outside of maybe some of the high end SLR's (read: EXPENSIVE!) Digital cameras aren't suitable for "action" shots. They just don't have the speed of a film based camera yet. Even my fairly expensive G2 is pretty poor at take rapid shots. The delay from when you press the shutter button to when the camera actually takes the pic is quite long.