Whats a good camera for someone who's just starting out?

[abhijit]

A Canon SLR uses Compact Flash cards, instead of SD cards.

[Atheist]

Not this one - it uses SD/SDHC cards only.

[abhijit]

That's an improvement over the one I have.

[Arrow_Raider]

Something to consider when buying a camera capable of recording, is whether or not it allows external microphones to be used. Built-in microphones are absolute rubbish. Their capture levels are too quiet, they are too staticy/noisy, and they have a reverb effect that sounds awful. For the video capturing ability to be worth anything, the camera needs to allow external microphones to be attached. Does that camera allow this?

[Atheist]

Nope it doesn't. Doesn't really bother me though because:
- My main interest is still to take photographs, the video is just a plus (a big plus!).
- One of the things I'll be using the video recording for would be to record me and my brother playing music, for possible youtube-uploads. In this case we would plug our instruments directly into the computer and record the audio that way anyways.
- I have watched some sample videos on youtube taken by the camera, and I dont think it sounds all that bad.

I ordered it earlier this morning, so I'll just have to see how it performs when I get it

[abhijit]

Something to consider when buying a camera capable of recording, is whether or not it allows external microphones to be used. Built-in microphones are absolute rubbish. Their capture levels are too quiet, they are too staticy/noisy, and they have a reverb effect that sounds awful. For the video capturing ability to be worth anything, the camera needs to allow external microphones to be attached. Does that camera allow this?

How many point & shoot cameras have this feature?

[Arrow_Raider]

None that I know of, but I know some camcorders do.

I don't use photography cameras to record video.

[schoolbusdriver]

I have a Fuji F50fd P&S that records movies with sound, in mjpeg format. You need to convert it to be more useful.

It's pretty handy at times, as it's shirt pocket sized and has a good resolution. I tend to carry it around everywhere, just in case I see something interesting.

My son used it recently to get a reasonable shot of a Lancaster bomber flying over Saddleworth. Only had a few seconds to jump out of the car (I was driving / doing an emergency stop) and take a snap. When I looked round to apologise, every driver in sight (about 40) had hit the brakes and were jumping out in the middle of the road looking at the bomber - many with P&S cameras and camcorders

[abhijit]

I have a Fuji F50fd P&S that records movies with sound, in mjpeg format. You need to convert it to be more useful.

It's pretty handy at times, as it's shirt pocket sized and has a good resolution. I tend to carry it around everywhere, just in case I see something interesting.

My son used it recently to get a reasonable shot of a Lancaster bomber flying over Saddleworth. Only had a few seconds to jump out of the car (I was driving / doing an emergency stop) and take a snap. When I looked round to apologise, every driver in sight (about 40) had hit the brakes and were jumping out in the middle of the road looking at the bomber - many with P&S cameras and camcorders

Did any of the drivers get tickets or citations?

[Atheist]

The camera has arrived
Altough I am at work right now (working night shift as usual), so I havent been able to touch it much yet. I cant wait until tomorrow!! It's having its batteries charged at the moment!

[mendhak]

Flickr.

[EntityX]

Atheist maybe you can take a picture or two in the next 24 hours that's good enough to enter into the contest. Only one more day for photo entries for the contest. I think maybe noon is the cut off time and if so then you would have less than 24 hours. Anybody who wants to get their photos in the contest, don't wait. Time's almost up.

[grilkip]

Nice choice Atheist, do keep your camera in 720P mode when you're shooting video as the 1080P mode is only 20fps. Quite useless.

[Atheist]

Nice choice Atheist, do keep your camera in 720P mode when you're shooting video as the 1080P mode is only 20fps. Quite useless.

Thanks. Yeah I've been testing it out a bit and I've got it set on 720p mode, it looks quite nice.