I know it’s been brought up before, but I need some advice on buying a digital camera. So please tell me how good or bad your digi-cam is and what I may expect to spend on a good setup.
Thanks ’
Kenny
I have a Canon Powershot 200. It works really well for Trail rides, mostly because it’s really small. It’s 3.4x2.2x1.1 inches, or about the same size as my mouse. It takes pretty decent quality pics for the price, last time I checked it was about $250.
I also purchased three Cannon Powershots for work (or my used to be work). We liked the stainless steel case and the ease of use. I’d suggest at least 3 megapixels if you can swing it.
Bruce
Go for at least 3megapixels. Make sure there’s software with the camera to download it for the computer to run on. Make sure your Operating System is at least Windows 98SE, ME & XP. to load the software. USB cables should also be included. My Suggest brands are Sony, Canon & Ricoh. Others will help you in your situation. Good luck. My father’s camera is a Ricoh Caplio RR30 and it’s a ripper. A very good Camera. I love it.
David.
Cameras are optical instruments. Digital cameras are the highest quality when the optics are the highest quality. Digital cameras made by Nikon or Olympus are all going to be pretty good. Any film camera maker should also have a good digital camera. I haven’t heard anything good about Fuji yet, though.
You need gobs of pixels if you’re trying to make prints. Digital cameras are not the tool to use for prints. Film is for prints. Digital cameras are great for making web and e-mail photos. The only reason for lots of pixels there is that you can indiscriminately crop later on.
Purchasing a digital camera is an exercise in compromise of features, size, and price.
I spent hours at Steve’s Digicams http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html and dpreview http://www.dpreview.com/ . Read the reviews, both sites are excellent. dpreview also has forums you where you can lurk, search, or post for other opinions.
I wanted a camera with a good wide angle and a large range optical zoom. I also wanted a hot shoe so I could use a powerful external flash for indoors like shooting pics of my kids playing basketball in a gym. I ended up buying the Minolta Dimage 7i. It has a 28 - 200 manual optical zoom, way more megapixels than I’ll ever need, Thru the lens Electronic viewfinder, and feels like a SLR.
I love it but this camera is not for everybody. The downside: It is complicated, it is big and does not travel as well as a smaller camera would whilst Muni-ing. I keep it well padded deep within my hydration/backpack.
What are you looking for in a digital camera? What features are most important for you? Any camera you get is going to be a compromise either for size, features, optic quality, lens zoom, cost, etc. It all depends on where you choose to compromise.
There are some nice smaller cameras that are more handy for taking with you on a unicycle ride. There are some larger cameras that have more features than the small ones and a better lens. At the top end there are the SLR style digital cameras.
Some web sites to check out for digital camera reviews and general digital camera info:
<http://www.dpreview.com/>
<http://www.steves-digicams.com/>
<http://www.imaging-resource.com/>
<http://www.dcresource.com/>
I have a Fuji 2600. It takes nice pictures as well as 20 second video clips. It came with a 16mb card, but I upgraded to a 128mb card a few months ago. I like the Canon that Max uses better, because it’s smaller and records sound with the videos.
I just bought a Canon miniDV camcorder this week.
http://www.dvspot.com/reviews/canon/zr65-review/index_pfv.shtml
I still need to get a Firewire card and cable though, so I can edit footage on my computer. I can’t wait to get some good muni/trials footage with it.
Mojoe
I very recently got a digital camera.
I went down to my local camera shop, that is run by enthusiasts, and spent about 1 1/2 - 2 hours just testing and playing and chatting.
Ended up buying a canon A70 for about GPB£250, with loads of batteries etc…
Good camera I think.
I’ve got a Sony DSC-U20. It’s by far the best camera for unicycling that I’ve seen so far. I love it.
It’s about the size of a tiny mobile phone, takes 2 megapixel pictures (which are good enough for web use and for printing out at normal photo size (7x4 inches) but don’t look too good at A4 size. Unless you’re printing out bigger than normal sized printed pictures there’s no point getting more resolution. The good thing about it is that it can fit in your pocket or on the mobile phone pocket on my camelbak strap, so it’s always to hand, it turns on really quickly and takes pictures with very little delay. So I can just grab the camera out and take a picture, without setting up a shot or digging a camera out of my bag. It has a metal body that seems pretty resilient, I’ve crashed a few times with it on my shoulder strap and it hasn’t done any damage. The rechargeable batteries it uses are £2 a set, so you can have spares for not very much money. Oh and it takes burst mode pictures which are good for crashes. It’s easy to operate with one hand (slide lens cover open, press button) so you can take pictures while riding. Apparently the flash is quite good (but I wouldn’t really know). The batteries last for ages, I used them recently for a bit over a weeks worth of riding / walking every day and taking pictures, which is much better than my old camera with batteries that didn’t last so long and cost £25 a time.
The downside is that it doesn’t have a zoom, it doesn’t have any picture options other than manual focus and focus lock, flash etc. and doesn’t take really high res pictures if you want to print posters or other big pictures. It doesn’t have a usable video mode.
I’ve had this camera and a bigger more complex digital camera and I find I get much better pictures with the new one simply because I can take lots more pictures rather than only when I’ve got the camera out. Also it’s much quicker to take the picture after you press the button than any other digicam I’ve played with except for my dad’s (really expensive) digital SLR back.
I’ve even been riding something and thought wow that’d look cool on camera and just jumped off, turned round and caught a picture of the person following me down the trail, it’s that quick. If you’re just riding in a small area ie. doing trials / freestyle and you can cope with having to setup shots a bigger camera might be nice, but for muni riding I don’t reckon a camera that can’t be kept handy is worth having. You get better pictures by taking all the possible pictures than by only taking pictures you take the trouble to set up and you don’t have to mess people around to take a pic. I find you can do more riding if you don’t have to take time out to take pictures.
Joe
I have one of your photos (this one) printed out on glossy A4 paper; you have to look very closely at high-contrasting parts of the photo to notice anything other than a perfect photo.
Phil
joe, how much did that sony camera cost?
£205 from Jessops, they price match with internet sites and I went in and looked at the camera and was way tempted and they guy said “by the way, someone came in with printout from a web site with it for £205, so you can have it for that”.
Joe
I’m so jealous of all of you good camera owners. I’ve got a Sony DSC-P20 (which I do really like by the way, and it’s small and reliable) which is only a 1.1MP camera. It does fine for normal sized photo printouts on glossy paper but doesn’t have an optical zoom. My next camera (which will take a while to save for) will hopefully take better videos. That’s something to check, if you’re getting one that takes videos, make sure it’s not lying about the frame rate. Mine takes 25 frames per second but it groups them in lots of three identical frames. This really annoys me, and it means the videos look a bit ‘jerky’. It’s only really an 8 frame per second camera. You might like to check that when buying.
I got my camera when they were still relatively new and cost much more than they do today. I’ve put it to good use though.
How does the manual focus on that U-20 work? Do you mean you can choose something like a ‘1.5m’ or a ‘5m’ setting? Can it take videos?
Andrew
Andrew.
That is a good camera as my recommended list as I said above.
But I been told to Stay away at least 1megapixels by top camera experts. When My father bought the Ricoh Caplio RR30 worth about $900. (Australian Dollars) But got a discount for about $700 plus an extra 64mb memory card to thrown in with it. Dad bought it from the Good Guys in Kotara Newcastle and this guy knows Digital Cameras because he’s a Photographer.
I’m getting my own little Digital Camera for the computer.
A 3 in 1 Digital Camera. It uses as a Web Cam, Take Digital Photo’s and more. At around Under $200 (Aust. Dollars) I’m getting one, one day. But in the mean time I’ll use my father’s Camera for all the action I’ll need. And don’t forget I work with computers every day and I know about these Digital Cameras at the back of my head.
David.
Well, I’d like a bigger-than-1MP camera and I’ll get one next time but money was and is an issue. Mine’s done pretty well though.
Andrew
Ive been saving money ive got from shows, and could now easy buy a good camera.
I want around 3megapix, video function, software, memory card with it, etc. I think my best be will be to go to a shop and just spend ages in there. The best ones are the ones run by enthusiasts, and not the likes of Currys or comet, who just want to make a huge profit.
Ill maybe go have a look nest weekend. 
Cya,
Joe,
Something else that you might want to consider is an interface for the memory card. The difference between connecting my Canon PowerShot S200 and a $15USD interface is unbelievable.
I can be finished copying 132 pictures (the entire 128MB CompactFlash card) faster with the interface before I can get the computer to recognize the camera, let alone copying through the camera.
Evidently, it’s a good camera but a lousy computer interface, although it might be the program. Not to surprising.
As an aside, this is what is replacing the floppy disk, it’s smaller, more robust, has higher capacity (by several orders of magnitude), and faster. Some computer manufacturers already have floppy disk drives as an option.
Cameras are getting smaller. Check out this Casio EX-Z3. Metal body, small, thin, and a zoom lens.
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/ex-z3.html
It looks like it would be a great camera for taking with you on unicycle rides. Being small has the advantage that you’ll be more likely to take the camera with you and be more likely to take it out for more shots.
Some downsides for the camera is that it doesn’t have a fast cycle time between shots. There is something like a 4 second lag before you can take the next shot. That could be a problem for shooting action pictures on a unicycle ride. I’d also wonder how well it will focus in low light on a tree covered trail. It doesn’t have a focus assist light. Oh well, there are always compromises to get the small size. But boy is it small.
The Casio is very similar to the Pentax Optio-S. They both use the same lens and have a similar body size.
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/optios.html
I have a Casio QV-4000 and Casio does a good job with their cameras. It’s not a perfect camera but it gets the job done for me. The Casio cameras generally cost less than similar cameras from companies like Canon and Sony.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Casio/casio_qv4000.asp
You can speed-up the time between shots by using the set or hold focus and exposure on some cameras, that’s part of what the camera is doing for those 4 or so seconds.