[QUOTE]Originally posted by lucid
[B]The Olympus 3000 Zoom runs from $400-$600.

 

What's the cheapest camera with over 3 mega pixels?

 

the 3000Z is 3.3 megapixals.

3x optical zoom 2.5 digital.

 

Go with the Nikon Coolpix 995. I've seen some amazing pictures taken with that camera.

 

The canon g1 powershot is a kick butt camera. The battery last days not minutes like some cameras. It has 3.34 million pixels, 3x optical zoom plus more digital zoom, you can take movies 30 seconds in length at 15 frames per second with sound. You can also buy very large memory cards up to 1 gig. It takes top notch pictures and is very fairly priced at about 700 bucks and its easy to use.

 

holy crap, for $400 bucks, I'm down to get one.

3.3 megapixels for that price is great.

But that canon g1 sounds tempting also.

 

The Canon G1 is very much on a par with the high end Nikon Coolpix cameras. It is excellent and has the advantage(to my mind) of looking like a conventional camera. If you can stretch to the dosh.. go for it... you'll never outgrow it

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by integrate
[B]

how many megapixels?

 

expresscameras.com has the Olympus 3000Z for $414. I never bought from them, i just saw the price.

in my camera i put in a 64MB smart card. In low quality 640x400 I get 665 photos, in HQ i get 81. It goes SHQ and then TIFF. These are the extra high quality shots but they take A LOT of space on the card.

low quality shots are fine for most

 

Man is this tough question to answer, "buy this camera." I use a Nikon 990 but I wouldn't recommend it for everyone.

The camera questions to answer are things like:

What are you going to do with the pictures? This is the big factor regarding how many Mega-pixels you need. If you want photo-quality inkjet prints you want at least 2 MP's to print an 8x10 (at 250-ish pixels per inch). More MP's let you crop and still get decent 8x10's. If you want on-line photos to use on a website (at maybe 72 pixels per inch) a 1 MP camera is fine.

What memory type does it use? Can this be shared with another device you own or plan to own (Mp3 player, camcorder, or...). Do you want the IBM microdrives (CF Type II slot, but they use more power/batteries)?

What batteries does it take? AA's are common and easy to find in outer Mongolia (even in NiMH technology). Lithium CR-styles are expensive and hard to find. Does it have an external power input (so you can run it from a 115V/220V adapter?).

What is the computer connection? A serial port is way slow for big files. USB is great if you have it on your PC.

How much creative control do you want? If you're not a camera nut then the Nikon I use is overkill. But I want to able to use full-manual control or various (aperture, shutter, of full) auto control with shift override. And I want to be able to choose my metering options (spot or multi-zone).

Are you a serious artist? Then an uncompressed image storage mode is important. Yeah, high quality JPEG is good but not as good as uncompressed.

Is maximum color fidelity a big deal to you? Sure you can correct colors in Photoshop or whatever but it takes time and serious skill. As opposed to just buying a Kodak camera because they have some of the best color fidelity.

These questions can go on ad-nauseum but, for instance, I assume every decent camera has a reasonable zoom lens with threads to add lens adapters. For respectable reviews check out Steve's Digicams site.