What digital camera for hunting and fishing????

[nate larson]

I already posted this in the equipment forum but I thought I would check here as well. Please see below:

I would like to get a reasonably priced digital camera that I can take with when I am out fishing and hunting. I want something that can handle a little abuse and has a good battery life. Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations????

Thanks!

[Slyster]

(This is a copy of the same answer in the equipment forum)

I would recommend the camera we just bought.. it's amazing! Olympus Stylus 760. $199.... up to 7 megapixels.. VERY small... weather proof! (why I bought it).. great photos and great video too... see my fireworks video I took in the video sharing forum.

Beach camera (online) has it for $199 + free shipping. Get a 2 gig card at walmart for $50 and you can have 2500 photos (at my medium quality settings... no need to ever use 7 megapixels!) and/or up to 40 minutes of HQ 640x480 video. Really small with a huge screen and lens covers itself when off. Can handle rain and splashes... great thing to have for the outdoors.

Trust me... go to a local Best Buy or camera place and check it out! But don't pay $250 + Tax.. use Beach.. they have been around for 30 years and are a great mail order shop. Bought many cameras through them in that time.

[Steve Foss]

Only thing I would correct from Slyster's reply is the statement that you'll never need to shoot at the full 7 Mp size. Certainly, for Web and e-mail, that's true. If you will be making prints, however, it's best to shoot at the max size possible, in case you'll want enlargements or need to crop some out to get your best print.

[Paul]

What some people don't realize about the image size of their photos can very greatly with what the picture is. For instance my camera is a 10.1 megapixel. However unless it is RAW format my picutres on the highest quality will vary from 2.5 mb to 6 mb depending on what the picture is of. Now for instance if you took a macro picture of a box of crayola 128 color crayon box your picture would be 6-7 mb. But if you took a picture of your dog a night with no flash and dull background your pictures would be about 2mb. So since memory is cheep buy a good size card such as a 2 gig card and shoot eveyrhing at the highest quality possible. I cna average 300-400 shots of my 2 gig card at the highest jpg setting. In Raw I get 150 or so.

[Slyster]

I really don't think with a standard size print (5x7 or smaller) anyone cold tell the difference between 2mp and 7mp.

I get great results with my Canon set to with 1600x1200.. not problems even up to 8x10. And that's only around 2 megapixels.

[Steve Foss]

Slyster, I'm glad your system has worked for you and I'd never suggest you change a successful process. But I'm going to respectfully differ with you here when it comes to recommendations for most shooters.

If you take an image on a 7 Mp camera set at medium quality (what you called 2 Mp) and find you have to crop out significant portions of the edges, you won't get an 8x10 that looks very good. And what if someone wants to go bigger? You never know when you might want a truly large print made until you capture something that makes you shiver. Sure would suck to get the image of a lifetime and cuss yourself for only capturing it at a medium quality setting. And that goes for folks taking pics of loved ones holding up fish just as much as pro shooters.

Memory cards are cheap. Even a 1 Gb card, which is dirt cheap nowadays, will get about 300 large jpeg images from my 8.2 Mp bodies, depending on the image captured and iso setting. And 2 Gb cards are cheap, too. With big cards so affordable, why would a person limit themselves unnecessarily by setting the image quality lower than maximum? That's like buying a Corvette and never taking it past second gear.

And, to return to the main topic, Nate, I'm sorry I can't help you with the ins and outs of the various point-and-shoots. But there are plenty of people posting on this forum who use them a whole lot, and I'm sure you'll get more feedback.

[nate larson]

I appreciate all of the responses guys! I am not really looking for anything all that fancy. Mainly I want a durable camera that I can take with in the duck blind and in the fishing boat. I would like to find one at Target so I can add it to our wedding registry. And I would like to find one for under 150 bucks... Oh and one more thing, I want a point and shoot that doesn't have a 5 second lag when I try to take a picture, I hate that! Does such a camera exist?

[minndonn]

One thing I would look at is a camera with both a viewfinder and and screen. In bright conditions the screen can be very hard to see. I personally used the viewfinder more than the screen anyway. Not sure what the models you are looking at have.

[Dbl]

Nate that really is the problem with most point and shoots, particularly the lower priced ones, shutter lag. There has been some improvement the last few years but you will still most likely have some delay.

[Slyster]

Stfcatfish.. I see your point. I was operating under my assumtion that we never make prints larger than the standard 4x6. Two mega pixels does just fine for that.. but with cropping and also very large prints etc.. I agree I might be disappointed one of these days.

So true about RAM too... we have a 2gb card for this Olympus... and at my lower settings I can fit 2500 pictures... lol as if I need that many... with the 7mp setting it will still be in the hundreds... and with hard drives nearing the terabyte level... running out of space is really something we don't really need to worry about anymore.

I am amazed when I compare my TINY $45 memory xD card to my first PC's hard drive of fifteen years ago. 2000mb (card) vs. 80mb (hard drive) Unreal.

I do like to conserve memory for one reason.. the video... video really eats up RAM.. and it's fun to mix in video with pix on a trip etc.. a couple minutes of video with my Olympus eats up 100+ mb of RAM. In fact.. 2gb is only enough for 40 minutes of video. Should have gotten the 4gb card!

[nate larson]

Do any companies besides Olympus make All-Weather cameras? It seems like a company could make a lot of money if the made an affordable rugged weather resistant camera that can go in the tackle box or blind bag.

PS...Shutter lag is an issue but I am willing to put up with it if need be. Although it would be nice to find one with .5 seconds or less.

[Paul]

One thing you can do for a faster point and shoot is to use smaller memory cards and carry extra. My fiancees camera, which is a 5 mb olympus will fit in a large pocket, shorts, jacket, shirt etc. It is pretty fast using a 512 mb card. when we added a 2gig card for our trip last winter it took several seconds to access. SO if you buy point and shoot, I and want speed I would have to say buy several smaller memory cards and get the fastest cards on the market and you will be ok. I guess I dont know too much about point and shoot but my CF cards for my SLR are rated 2x, 80x, 133x etc. All mine are 133x. It makes a big difference with the download speeds and if you are taking continues pics. Antoher thing to look at is what type of card. SD is much cheaper than say XD. SD is probably most common among pocket cameras.

[Steve Foss]

Nate, I've got to think most of the big name P&S makers will have weather sealed DSLRs out there. I'd highly recommend going into a camera store and taking a thorough look.

Paul, do different write speeds and memory capacities in your cards produce different shutter lag speeds in your camera?

[Paul]

That I would not know. My better halfs camera had terrible slow time from power up to first picture with that big card in it. I have not used her camera much since I got a decent carrying case for my XTi. But I dont think it took long between pics. I will have to go home and experiment to night I guess.

[Steve Foss]

Paul, my question was because it would have surprised me greatly if actual shutter lag was affected by the card. Shutter lag is not how long it takes to write to the card between images. It's how long it takes the camera to actually snap the picture after the shutter button is pressed.

Also, some P&S cameras have limits on how large a card can be used and will bog way down or even not work at all if the card's too big.

[Slyster]

It doesn't affect camera speed.. at least ours.. we first used our Olympus before we got a memory card (it has enough built in RAM for like 20 pix) and it was the same speed as it is now with the 2gig card in it.

[Moose]

Nate,

I have a Panasonic DMC-LZ2 I purchased off hsolist for $150.00 2 years ago. It takes great pics and has a 6x optical zoom and a 4x digital zoom 24x total also has antishake mode works great for rocking in the boat. It's a 5mp camera so it's plenty good up to 8x10 and beyond. It is also great on batteries about 150 pics on rechargable aa batteries. I took it to Niagera Falls last year with great results here is one of the pic. Cnet.com reviews a lot of these point and shoot cameras if you want to do some research. Takes good family pics also for the newlyweds

Moose

[Steve Foss]

That series is the lone brand/make of point-and-shoot I have much experience with. Best thing about it is the Leica lens, which is SWEET and clear. Lovely piece of glass in a compact P&S.

[nate larson]

Thanks for all of the info everyone. I have decided that 150 dollars is the most that I am willing to spend and would like to spend less than that even. Any suggestions on a camera in this price range that I can get from Target? Here are a few options:

Samsung 6.0MP Digital Camera - Silver ($99)

Nikon Coolpix L10 5.0 MP Digital Camera ($120)

Samsung 7.2MP Digital Camera - Silver ($130)

Sony 7.2 MP Digital Still Camera ($130)

Nikon Coolpix L11 6.0 MP Digital Camera ($150)

Olympus 7.1MP Digital Camera - FE-210 ($150)

Any thoughts on these specific cameras????

Thanks!

[Moose]

Nate,

We have a Samsung 6.0 mp that you listed. It is very hard on batteries and the pictures come out blurry unless you hold it absolutely still. I'm talking maybe 20 pics on a set of batteries. I'm not really impressed with it.

Moose

[minndonn]

We have had 4 Sony point & clicks with the first being 1.2? meg and now a new one. Still like having the viewfinder along with a screen. We have been satisfied with them.