h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have been tasked with finding a digital camera for work and have been given a budget of $800(US). The thing is I know almost nothing about them. Any suggestions on what to look for?

Digital stills camera?
I bought the cheapest of the cheap, a Fuji, for IR£199 - and I'd expect the US version to be about US$200 or less.
Its cheap because it doesn't have an in-build LCD viewer screen, relying on the old-fashioned "look through the hole at the top" method of composing photos.
Both my brother and I have used it without any problems and between us have probably taken about 300 photos since mid December....the thing is they're sooo much more practical than the old version that you end up taking photos of just about anything .

Here in the States I've seen them cheaper still. You can get a "Barbie", or similarly themed digital camera for between $50 an $75(US).

I think that here at work they are looking for one that has all the "bells and whistles". We actually have one now but they are dissatisfied with the resolution. So upgrading we will go!

A large number of the "bells and whistles" can be achieved post download using "Paintshop Pro" (IMHO one of the best pieces of software ever written) which is quite cheap.
Other than that, number of pixels x colour depth is your best indicator of quality...and I recommend you try before you buy. Go to a local camera shop, show them the money and some proof of id and spend the afternoon playing around with some to see what they can do. Any retailer who won't allow you to do this doesn't deserve your custom .

How is the resolution on the "Barbie" ones and similar inexpensive ones? I want one that uses a 3 and a 1/2 inch floppy disk. Is this the same as a regular digital camera? What is a good pixel x color resolution?

I have had one of the Sony ones that uses a floppy disk for about three years, its ok for the type of work I do with it. (faily basic site surveys)and it is very good as a snapshot camera ( saves developing)

Floppy disks have the advantage of being cheap and plentiful. Which means I can carry a box of floppy disks in my bag and dont have lug the laptop about to down load the pictures when the camera is full.
Plus you don't need to load any drivers onto a computer to download the pictures from the camera, which is a pain if you want to download them onto someone elses computer.

The disadvantages of floppy disks cameras are that they are larger and heavier than the others due to having a floppy drive built in, are more prone to damage or breakdown (especialy rain getting into them)and using floppy disks limits the maximum file size and hence the resolution even with compressed formats (jpg).

The picture quality on mine is ok for screen use and web sites but the resolution is not really good enough for printed work beyond a very small size.

I think this type of camera has had its day now and am intending to upgrade sometime this year, probably to one of the newer models which stores images on removable memory cards even though the cards are still damn'd pricy.

I suspect that when I do upgrade my neice will probably lay claim to it so its still going to be in use for some time.

My friendly local camera shop threw in a 4Mb card gratis - so I (or more acurately, my brother for it was his christmas present) can get 120 photos at "high" quality on this and the one that came in the camera.
The kit came with a cable to download the photos to a PC through the serial port which is slow but nearly all PCs have a serial port. I've no doubt that a USB cable is available but I haven't needed it.
Image quality is 640x480 pixels, 24 bit colour. Not good enough for professional printed use but more than good enough for web pictures.
I would probably give the floppy disk a miss - its an old and very low storage volume technology.

Amazingly enough it looks like that(the floppy-disk style) is what I am being encouraged to procure. I think it has more to do with the fact that our systems integrators don't want to have to mess with supporting a program that is resident on only a couple of machines. So it appears that the Sony MVCFD-83 is what we are going with.
I actually went to purchase one yesterday and they were sold out. The salesman seemed to lean more toward the floppy disk style rather than the others that integrated more features. He said he didn't work off commission but who knows. It looks like a pretty good camera. Most of the pictures will be used on a website and portability from one computer to another will be important so this may be the best option right now.

I talked to my tame photographer (a rare beast indeed ) and he says that the _only_ digital camera he'd use is the Olympus C-3030.
Apparently it uses an optical zoom rather than a digital one hence no loss in quality and has all the clever stuff you'd expect on a professional camera. A bit steep at £800 - I'd be interested to know if you can get it much cheaper in the US...

Does anyone happen to know, off-hand, approximately how much 800 pounds (?) is? (Yes, damned American. *sigh* I know, I know)

It appears that general consensus is that the floppy disk digital cameras are a bit dated and as was said, are on their way out. However, I must agree with "Q" on the issue that they seem to afford portability more readily. That's my concern. The others that use a memory card - do they require more equipment to make the photos usable with a pc? I really like the idea of not having to develop my film. I take quite a lot of photos and am constantly having a backup of undeveloped film lying around the house as I am perpetually poor and development is not in the budget. ;->

We have discussed purchasing one of these digital cameras to feed my photographic addiction and I am leering at my pc, anxiously awaiting more input. ;->

Like I said before, I'm pretty new at this, but as I understand it most digital cameras can be plugged directly into the computer and the pictures downloaded from there. The downside can be that some of them take special software to convert the image into something your computer can read. Wish I could be more helpful!

Q

800 quid (pounds sterling) should be about 1200 dollars, but thanks to the inequities of rip-off Britain, anything I can buy for 800 pounds, you should be able to pick up for 800 dollars...its just not fair *sniff*.

Anyhow - the brother has bought himself a peripheral which looks like a floppy dik and goes in a floppy disk drive but reads the camera digital memory cards. This seems to be the easiest way to get the pictures on _any_ PC.

eBid UK has one currently at about £60 ($100ish)

http://www.ebid.co.uk