Best digital camera for around $500

I have found that the higher the mega-pixels the better for an amateur. Nearly everything can be made to look good with cropping and zooming during the printing process. I am very pleased with Fuji which features octagonal shaped megapixels. This makes them function at an even higher level than the average camera with the same number of megapixels.

It depends on what you are looking for. For $500 bucks you can get a top of the line point and shoot or a low end digital SLR.

Check out these sites:

http://www.dpreview.com/

http://www.steves-digicams.com/best_cameras.html

We can't decide between point and shoot and slr. I want the slr because the speed is faster and I think it captures more of the candid kid stuff that you miss with a p & s. Wife wants the tiny Canon powershot because it is small, accessible and easy.

Any ideas that might help?

You can buy either a Nikon D40 or a Canon EOS 350D with a 18-55 kit lens for $500-550. Either camera would be great for you because you'll have the huge performance jump of an SLR over compact/fixed lens cameras, and you'll be able to purchase nicer lenses down the road if you choose to do so. There are newer versions of both of these cameras, but they'll cost $100-200 more but won't perform 35% better to justify the jump when the older models are still available.

Canon Powershot SD 800IS

You know what, I have a little kid and got tired of,missing my team's racing moments and went out and bought a Nikon D50. It's great, but I just went to a graduation this weekend, and thought it would be awful nice to just be able to slip something into my pcoket instead of lugging a camera bad/lenses. Same for when I travel overseas. I've often thought tourists with big cameras hanging off their necks were asking for trouble.

Anyhow, you might want to seriously reflect on what's most important for you before deciding. If there is someone out there who thinks you can have a slip it in your pocket point and shoot without sacrificing the speed, photo quality or paying SLR prices, please chime in...

See my first reply above. I bought my Fuji 550 (there is now a better version of the same model for around $300)for the very reason you stated. I find that with most subjects, I get very comparable photos without lugging around the camera/lenses. The key is in the cropping/zooming done at processing. Mine is an 8 octagonal megapixel which acts like a standard 15. As long as the subject is in the photo, I can pull it in like I am standing next to it during processing.

Thanks!

I'd say look for the Nikon d50

I quite like the Nikon P5000

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Nikon/nikon_cpp5000.asp

The zoom is not very long, and there is no true manual focus, but it is compact enough to fit in a pocket.

If you take a lot of photos with a very long lens, very wide apertures or complicated flash setups, then I would go DSLR.

I have a Sony DSC-H5 I got for 399 and it has been my workhorse camera at work. Low light anti shake stablization is outstanding.

have a kid now wrote:

We can't decide between point and shoot and slr. I want the slr because the speed is faster and I think it captures more of the candid kid stuff that you miss with a p & s. Wife wants the tiny Canon powershot because it is small, accessible and easy.

Any ideas that might help?

I wanted an SLR, but realistically if you can't carry it with you everywhere, you won't get those once in a lifetime shots. Face it, are you really willing to lug around that big SLR? I have, but I'd catch myself thinking, "do I want to take the camera today?" With the p&s, you get a cheap case that hooks on your belt and you're ready to go. I carried my Casio EX-Z1000 yesterday on a point to point 5k in a fuel belt. Then, I took pictures of a friend's 8 year-old son who was running his first 5k. I couldn't have done with an SLR.

Whatever you do, make sure you avoid a P&S with a perceptible shutter lag. My Nikon 3200 p&s had about 0.4 seconds lag. That's way too slow to catch a runner at the finish or that fleeting expression on a baby's face. I opted for the Casio EX-Z1000 p&s, a 10.1 megapixel camera that you can buy today at Amazon for $240. The shutter lag is small to begin with, but if you set the focus to manual, infinity, or if you pre-focus (hold the shutter part way down) the shutter speed is almost instantaneous. Unless I'm shooting close-ups, I just set the focus to infinity when I'm outdoors so there is zero shutter lag. The shot quality and color rendition are excellent.

I hate the lack of Shutter or Aperture settings on the EX-Z1000, but you can choose modes under the Best Shot setting that set the shutter to the highest speed or the aperture to the widest setting. You can also set up a best shot setting with some customizing and then save it as your own unique best shot setting. That's what I do for indoor low light shots.

It also lacks a manual viewfinder. Under bright light, the LCD is hard to see, but passibly adequate. The Casio EX-Z750 has a manual viewfinder, and an AF and SP (aperture and shutter preferred) dial. Top shutter speed is 1/1600sec. The Casio anti-shake is NOT a true optical stabilizer. It just kicks the ASA setting up to 800 instead of the maximum of 400. If you or your spouse can't hold a camera steady at low light and you plan to take lots of low light shots, you should get a camera with a true anti-shake optical stabilizer.

By the way, the flash on most p&s are only good to about 6-8 feet. I use mine mostly as a fill-in flash. The EX-1000 does have a fill-in flash setting.

I was dissatisfied with my Nikon 3200 p&s. The shutter lag was so great that I couldn't fix it, even with the manual focus. I kept missing shots. The best place for camera reviews online is steves-digicams.com

So, now I am swinging over to my wife's side and I have been looking at high end p&s cameras. I think I have settled on a Cannon G7 powershot since it is in my price range and seems to be a solid model with lots and lots of features. Any comments on that model?

Have a G5 (earlier version of G7) and it's great - I still haven't figured out all the bells & whistles, but having the ability to shoot in RAW format (which the G7 might not have) is a big plus.