Nikon Coolpix 885

Wendy and I finally decided to buy ourselves a Christmas present.  Both of us have been thinking about a digital camera for some time.  The question became "Which one?".  There are so many out there.

Wendy's criteria were very simple.  It just had to be easy to use.  I was a little picky...-er.  I wanted full manual control as well as a good automatic, large zoom, photographic quality and small size, all for under $500.  In other words, I wanted the world and did not want to pay for it.  As usual.

I started looking at Olympus, Minolta, Nikon, Canon and Sony.  Wendy says I'm a brand snob.  What do you think?

As I researched our options Wendy threw in one more criteria.  Photographic quality up to 5"x7" or even 8.5"x11" on a photo printer.  I said, "Now your talkin'!".

I fell in love with the:

  Olympus Camedia C-700 Ultra Zoom

I pushed that one real hard.  Wendy wanted to keep looking.  I am not quite sure why.  After all, I found the camera that I wanted.  I guess it's always good to keep your options open.  After about a month had passed she pointed out the Minolta DiMAGE S304.  I looked at the stats.  It looked like a great camera.  Of course that drew my attention to the DiMAGE 7.  WOW!  The DiMage 7 looked like the ultimate under $1500 digital camera.  I think if you look real hard you might be able to find it for under $1000... but ... it was way out of our price range.  In fact we had to raise our limit a little to include the DiMAGE S304 $700 msrp.  At that time the Nikon Coolpix 5000 had not yet reached the shelves.  It too was out of our price range but, again... WOW.

Note:  If any of you have the Nikon Coolpix 5000 there is a software bug fix downloadable from Nikon.

I looked at many sights during my research but these were my favorites:

As Christmas approached we narrowed our choices to:

During my research I read that 3 mega-pixel resolution is required for photographic quality in 5x7 prints.  With that in mind we narrowed the choices to the Minolta and Nikon.  A friend has since informed me about Kodak's specs that state 2 mega-pixels for 5x7 and 3 mega-pixels for 8x11.  I have not verified that.  Nor have I tried printouts larger that 3x5.  I will let you know the results as soon as I.

Minolta's S304 requires sending all photos thru color correction or enhancing software to achieve true color representation.  I am not sure what the pictures would look like before enhancement.  It probably would make little difference but, I was not ready to take any chances.  We opted for the Nikon.

Local stores had sale prices as low as $599.  The internet had prices as low as $420.  I have been doing business with Camera World for 15 years.  They have always served me well.  They have fairly good prices, excellent service and they are Authorized Dealers for most major brands (no gray market).  

We paid $519 for our camera.  We also ordered a rechargeable battery and charger as well as a camera case.  

buy.com

Camera World

So far we are very happy with the Nikon Coolpix 885.  I think the 5Gig storage was probably overkill.  We got it because we thought that we would want full resolution photos for every photo.  In reality, we have not yet taken one photo at full resolution.  The true test will be printing out 5x7 and 8.5x11 copies of the photos. We will let you know the results.  

 

TO BE CONTINUED...

 

Canon Posts EOS 20D Firmware Update

October 7, 2004 - Canon Japan has released the EOS 20D v1.0.5 firmware update that fixes the following:

* Version 1.0.4 firmware released on October 4 had a bug in the program that handles the update. In cases where the update was performed with a lens attached to the camera, there were situations in which the firmware could not be updated correctly. The version 1.0.5 firmware fixes the version 1.0.4 bug so that the firmware can be updated correctly.
* Fixes the problem of shutter release not working. In rare cases, the camera freezes and the shutter stops working if a lens removed or attached while the camera is in auto power off mode. (In other cases, the camera might hang up during continuous shooting.) - This problem has been fixed.
* Improves reliability when using some CF cards. Improved reliability of communication with CF cards

Canon has also posted the following information: "When the firmware update operations are finished, turn the camera off and remove battery from the camera for at least two seconds. This will cause the new firmware to effect after the battery has been reloaded and the camera is turned on. When performing the firmware update operations, do so after removing the lens from the camera."

This is an excerpt from Steve's Digicams digital cameras review site.