A Bit OT - Small Digital Cam?

Triathlon Forum
1

Any reccomendations for a small digital camera? Details that are important:

  • Small/light enough to be carried in a cycling jersey pocket
  • durable
  • large viewing screen
  • zoom lens
  • good to very good optical/lens quality
  • Less than $200

Thanks.

2

… and small enough to hide in the ST women’s locker room

3

Pentax Optio W20 (or the WPi)

Small, fully submersible, and takes great shots. The ONLY reason I went with something else was because at about 1/2 battery it develops some shutter lag - and I take bad enough pictures as it is. They may have corrected that in the newer version (I looked at the one before the WPi) and Tom D takes awesome shots with his. It really is the guy standing behind the camera.

4

I don’t have a specific recommendation, but I just did a bunch of research on a digital camera and this site was very useful: http://www.dpreview.com/.

I just used their feature search as under $200 with at least a 2.5" screen and zoom to at least 135mm. Only 1 camera came up (but you can get more if you need less zoom for example):
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=nikon_cpl1&show=all

5

I have a Canon SD500 which I really like. I also have a S2IS when I want a longer zoom.

The Pentax sounds interesting since it’s waterproof.

6

the canon sd series is nice and small. my boss just bought and SD600 and it takes really nice pictures and is super small. Olympus has a waterproof, shockproof small camera but I think it’s over your budget. It might be worth it if you can carry it without a case. the panasonic lumix series also has small cameras with decent glass. a lot of picture quality these days is more to do with the processing software/hardware than the glass. panasonic likely has better optics but canon image quality is better because of less noise in the processing and sensor.
here’s a camera guide with some sample shots from the canon sd camera’s
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/2006-camera-guide.htm

7

I have a very inexpensive Polaroid point & shoot digital camera with a bit better than “Good” optics. Works great & the memory card also plugs into my pocket pc/phone.

FYI - It’s a PDC 5070…Features include 4x digital zoom (no optical), 16MB internal memory, Secure Digital card slot, 1.5" LCD, and USB connectivity.

8

Just a note - a small camera means you take it with you everywhere. Taking it with you everywhere means that it’s a lot more likely to get:
wetdroppedsmackedloststolenOn the other hand, if you don’t have it, you can’t take cool, great pictures.

I’ve busted three digital cameras that I’ve brought with me. One by dropping it, one by smacking the screen with a ski pole and one when I biffed into the swamp I was trying to muscle through on my bike.

My wife has stipulated that all future digital cameras need to be one step above throwaway, since that’s what keeps happening to them.

9

I second the SD series, I have an SD600 which you can get for around $200 and it fits the bill nicely. Credit card sized, huge screen, tons of options, takes good videos too.

11

Where are you findign these for under $200?