darxus | toys! new canon sd450 compact digital camera

It is the height and width of a credit card, 2.2cm thick, and takes 2592x1944 (5mp) pictures. Very sexy.

As a result, I should probably sell my Xacti C5 compact video camera, and find a way to trade my Sony Ericsson S710a cellphone for a black Motorola Razr.

Canon s200 (still)
Maybe 4 years ago I bought a Canon s200. I loved it, wore it every day (in a belt pouch). Someone was interested in buying a used one since they were impressed with how mine worked. I took the opportunity to upgrade.

Canon s45 (still)
I was initially thinking about staying in the same series, but decided to go with the larger s45 model instead to get more features. I never used the extra features, and I never carried it because it was too big, so it never got used. It got dropped the last time I moved and broke.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-C5 (video)
The lines between still and video cameras are blurring, and I felt a need to participate. The Xacti C5 is an incredible compact video camera - 640x480 @30fps for an hour on a 1gb sd card using MPEG4 (nice). It is also a good resolution still camera, but the quality of the stills has always bugged me, and I have done very little actual video recording.

To this day Canon's cameras use audio/video codecs that are agravatingly lame - "Movie: AVI (Image: Motion JPEG; Audio: WAVE (Monaural))". So they're just sticking a bunch of jpegs together and calling it a movie, and using an ancient bloated method of storing audio.

Sony Ericsson S710a (phone)
In september 2005 I noticed the existence of the new tinier camera size Canon put out, starting with the SD200. Very cute. But the resolution wasn't exciting. My 2 year Verizon contract ended and I wanted something more fun. I was torn between the Sony Ericsson S710a with the best camera in a phone, or getting a black Motorola Razr and the SD200. I got the S710a. 1280x960 is a respectable resolution, and the image quality is good - for a phone. But, it turns out, not enough to keep me happy as the only camera I regularly carry.

s450 (still)
I was in a Best Buy yesterday, and as always, I glanced at the still cameras on my way through. I saw the sd450. I noticed it was the same size as the teensy sd200. I looked it up, and got excited. Did a little research, and ordered it (I paid for fedex ground, I don't know why I got it the next day).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What would you recommend that won't cost me more then 200 bucks.
I'm very interested in the Cannon Powershot A75.

I own a Powershot A40, and my girlfriend owns an A95. I tend to recommend the two-digit A series when somebody asks. The picture quality is good.

It depends on your priorities, though. Darxus would never ever gets one because he wants something tiny. If it being the size of a regular consumer-level camera doesn't bother you, then I'd say go for it.

How are any of the Axx series better than the A520, other than battery life? Or do you think battery life is enough to justify the higher cost?

And you're right, I would never get an A-series, but I realize other people have different priorities :P

I'm assuming that you meant that as, "I think your recommendation is suboptimal." In which case, you could very well be correct. I have a fondness for CF over SD for what is probably no rational reason. I immediately liked CF as a format when I heard that it had the same pin-out as IDE. It's physically a bit bigger, so it tends to be cheaper for the same capacity. The physical packaging also seems to be more durable -- it almost feels like I could crinkle an SD card with a strong sneeze. On the downside, the socket it plugs into needs to have delicate exposed pins (although design tends to dictate that they don't get damaged), and everything seems to be moving to SD. Try to short out a CF card on a spiral notebook, though. :-P

The battery life is probably due to it taking four batteries rather than two. I tend to carry around extra batteries with the camera anyway, so the difference wouldn't be that big of a deal to me. Even if it eats new sets of batteries at a quicker rate, it's only munching half as many at a time.

As a side note, your allowance that different people have different priorities is probably one of the more reasonable things I've witnessed you say. :-P

I have no similar fondness for CF, I like the smallness that comes with SD. And I tend to never pull the card out of its device, so it's not exposed to physical damage. Cheapest 1gb CF on newegg is $49.50, cheapest 1gb SD is $44.95, so I would say the price difference is nolonger an issue.

It was a CF card that I shorted on a spiral notebook. In a socket in a live computer with no case, and I shorted it through the back side of the PCB. Same thing would have happend to SD. Not relevant. :P

I agree battery life isn't a significant issue.

I've noticed myself being more reasonable lately, and it has been distressing.

nchanter recently consoled me with the sugggestion that this is due to the currently exceptional state of my sex life.

But since I think we're pretty much agreeing that there are no significant differences (with your preference for CF being irrational), then I still think the currently cheaper A520 (with more powerful zoom) is the better choice for pretty much anybody (within the constraint of $200).

At this point, we own two items that take CF and two CF cards (256MB and 512MB). (I do have a Palm and a 16MB SD card.) It would be inconvenient to get something requiring new media, although I suppose it's almost inevitable, assuming that we replace/upgrade our current camera. (It's a Powershot A40, 2 megapixel.)

gets one

Argh. I really ought to proofread these things. I'm not that illiterate; I promise.

I love http://www.dpreview.com/ - they have such great info on digital cameras.

For your question I went there, clicked Buying / Feature Search, then Format: Compact, and Price: <$200. I am clearly very fond of canon, they make nice stuff. I suspect you'd be happy with pretty much any canon. The A75 seems fine, but...

Canon A520, definitely. It's smaller, cheaper, and has 4x zoom instead of 3x. It's a decendent of the A75.

A75 $197.15, 2048x1536, 3x zoom, CF, 4 AA batteries
A80 $192.18, 2272x1704, 3x zoom, CF, 4 AA batteries
A510 $161.89, 2048x1536, 4x zoom, SD, 2 AA batteries
A520 $149.99, 2722x1704, 4x zoom, SD, 2 AA batteries

Prices are from http://www.pricegrabber.com/ including shipping.

dpreview feature comparson of these 4

The A80 has excessively good battery life - running 3 hours. 136 minutes for the A520, still very good, so I really doubt the difference is enough to go with the older more expensive camera. Battery info from http://www.imaging-resource.com/. You're probably going to want to get NiMH rechargables.

In depth review of the A520

I've bought from http://www.beachcamera.com/ and I just bought my new one from http://www.buydig.com/ - they have some of the best prices listed on pricegrabber.

You're probably going to want more than the 16mb storage that comes with it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820211312 - 512mb sd card for $26 shipped. There are many options. That camera can take pictures from 84KB (worst quality) to 1002KB (1MB) (highest quality). The highest I'd probably recommend is Large (2272x1704) Fine, which is half a MB per image.

The "512mb sd card" I linked to here is a 256mb card. I'm not sure if that was a typo they've since fixed or I misread.

In case that was overwhelming, I'd suggest you buy these 2 things:

Canon A520, $159
512mb upgrade memory card, $31 - will hold 523 to 6,241 photos depending on quality settings. Half as much would cost $10 less.
Both prices are shipped.

toys! new canon sd450 compact digital camera

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject