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Good Digital Camera for Tourism and Panoramic Pictures


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Hi all, I'm writing to solicit your advice. I know zilch about

digital cameras. My daughter is going to travel to New Zealand and

wants a digital camera which will be user friendly, have a telephoto

capability, and be able to take panoramic pictures. The maximum cost

would be $1,000 US, but under $500 would be preferred. I've searched

in the archives and come away baffled because Greenspun's reviews of

cameras in 2001 are outmoded and finding current information has

proved difficult. I don't imagine my daughter will want to print

anything larger than an 8 inch by 10 inch. I would appreciate your

suggestions about models to consider. Thanks.

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Depends on your daughter's photography skills too, really.

 

If she doesn't know that much and just the basic of cameras, then maybe a prosumer level camera will be enough already.

If so, prosumer wise, if that was me, I'd pick from either:

 

Olympus 8080WZ or Panasonic FZ20. Depends on what you need from the camera. But if it's mainly panoramic, and not much action shots, I'd go for the 8080WZ. Whereas FZ20 is much more versatile, with emphasise on Telephoto.

 

Plus I assume there will be lots of hiking involved ? carrying a heavy DSLR with lens setup on a long hike is not something I'd do.

 

But different people will have different opinions though.

 

Don't forget a couple of decent memory cards, a set of nice tripod and a portable storage for transferring files from card to camera. Might wanna consider spare battery too.

 

Albert.

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I just remembered, it's $1,000 max, portable storage is not that cheap. If your daughter has a laptop, maybe she can use that for storage. (loads all the pictures into the laptop after a day of hiking)

 

Anyway, here is the link for the basic stuff about the cameras:

 

8080WZ:

 

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympusc8080wz/

 

FZ20:

 

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz20/

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For $200 less than the 8080, you can get it's highly regarded older brother, the 5060. It's 5MP with slightly less zoom range, but the same wide angle. http://www.jr.com/ sells it for $499.

 

Unless she really gets into it, she probably won't need that much storage. A 1GB Compact Flash card ($79) will probably keep her happy with space for about 400 shots. You can get a 2GB for $150 doubling that number.

 

Contrary to what my Australian friends will make you believe, New Zealand is actualy quite a developed country and she can go into most photo stores to get her card burnt to CD. :)

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heheh...

 

Bas, I didn't imply that NZ was undeveloped country, but I was just thinking in regards of convenience. I personally prefer to have my own storage system than having to go back and forth to shop and burn images into CDs.

 

But again, maybe some people don't mind at all. So that's a personal preference though.

 

Albert.

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Thanks guys, those answers are helpful. I'd say the prosumer level would be the right level for what my daughter needs. Megan draws and paints well, but is not particularly involved in the mechanics of picture taking. I guess she'll be hiking, she is athletic, and from the pictures I've seen of New Zealand, the countryside is breathtaking. So, a lighter, smaller camera would be easier to deal with. I don't know if she'll want to take her laptop with her. If other people support these recommendations or have others to offer, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks.
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The first decent digital I got was a Canon s20, a 3.3Mp point and shoot and not only did I take good exhibition shots with it it also taught me to take panoramic shots. I also learnt that for all the guff about shooting panos it is really quite simple if you have a good editing programme [PSP or Elements] else as I did for starters Canon Stitch. Basically you need to maintain the relative angle of view between the shots, preferably horizontal, and organise a 30% overlap. So you do not need a "panoramic" camera, almost any camera will surfice. The out of production s20 just made it easy since you just had to match up the incoming shot with the previous one in the viewfinder.

 

As an FZ20 owner I do not think it is a good tourist camera. The s20 was excellent since it slipped into my trouser pocket and stayed there except when taking shots for the five weeks I was away. The FZ20 is big and bulky like an SLR.

 

Not quite as good but answerng your need for a decent zoom, and with the added neccessity of image stabilisation, is the FZ3 along with say a 512Mb card which I guess will cut out the $1000. It might be an idea to have a pair of 256Mb cards so you can hand one in to a photoshop while you continue triping with the other. If FZ4 comes within the budget it will permit you to crop slightly when making the 10x8 prints. I was making 15x11's off my s20 for exhibition purposes with PSP to do the interpolating to invent pixels to print at 300dpi.

 

Shoot at maximum resolution but use compression if you need to squeese more shots onto the card.

 

You will find downloading facilities at Queenstown and Te Anau as well as main cities. Havn't been to the North Island in years.

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What about the Nikon Coolpix 8400.This is the only prosumer camera I know of that has a 24mm lense.A 24MM is MUCH more wider than a 28MM found on its nearest competitors.However it is only limited to 85mm on it's tele end but if you are taking pictures of scenary this would be a better choice.
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Even better than the 8400 while trying to keep within the budget is the 5000 with wide-angle converter equals 18mm with minimal distortion. Buying 8Mp when really one only needs 3Mp or 4Mp [for 10x8 prints] is overkill and more expensive. [$500 was also mentioned as desirable]

Possibly the 5400 which has a bit more zoom.

 

My wife carries her FZ3 [hence my familiarity with it] in a bum-bag around her waist, and there would still be room for passport and money since she is only using one pocket for the camera [obviously! :-)]

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One point with regard to panoramas ... put two shots together and you have around a 5Mp camera shot, three sections say 7<8Mp etc. So a quality 12x48 print is not unreasonable with the 3.3Mp camera held vertically in portrait mode to get say a pano of Milford Sound showing water and Mitre Peak etc. I was shooting video last time I was there with overseas visitors so nothing to show you.
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The only problem with stitching images together is if the light is rapidly changing or if the clouds in the sky are fast moving!

Consider the Coolpix 5400 instead of the 5000 since many reviews say that the latter has a very poor lense.The Coolpix 5400 is supposed to solve this major problem.

 

If you want a truly pocketable camera with a large zoom try out the Optio 450/550/555 series.These have a 5x(37.5mm-187.5mm) zoom.I have an Option 450 and it can produce some great images.

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NZ offers tremendous landscape opportunities, not much in the way of wildlife. With this in mind I'd be tempted to go for as wide a lens as possible, and not too much of a long zoom. Anything up to 4x should be OK. A fast lens might help as well, since NZ can often be wintry and overcast.

 

I'd get at least 2x 1GigB memory cards. When you're on holiday you don't want to be watching your card space, you want to take as many pics as possible, and sort out the good ones only when you get home. A spare battery, and small mini-tripod, are good ideas as well.

 

Do a search on B&H for p&s cameras, sort on price, pick out those that fall around $400 - $500, and then select the ones which offer 3-4mp, 3-4x zoom, fastest lens, widest lens, and a photo stitch option. That will be your group.

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I did some hunting around for you, and came up with the following :

 

1) If the budget bites try the Canon S60 ($400)

Very compact, looks cool, wide angle, decent zoom, manual controls if needed.

 

2) If you can stretch the budget try the Olympus C-7070 ($700)

Bit old-fashioned in its looks, durable, very wide angle and fast lens, decent zoom, flip/rotate LCD panel, manual controls if needed.

 

You didn't mention whether your daughter was a) young, where a "cool" factor would play a role in deciding on the cameras appeal, or b) whether she was interested in photography, where their might be a longer-term view to which camera is best (i.e. what of post-trip requirements).

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Thanks, everybody, this information so far is great. My daughter is 20, will use the camera after the trip, I'm sure, leans more towards point and shoot than towards a heavy duty SLR, will be doing some hiking, and will not take her laptop computer with her. I have Photoshop Elements she can use, and can provide her with a mini-tripod to take with her. We talked it over last night, and this is as far as I know. I appreciate the effort you have all taken on this. Thank you. If anybody has any further ideas, please let me know.
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