I've been thinking about buying a new digital camera and notice how most are now 6mp (I have seen greater mp cameras on ebay).My question is,do I need a 6mp camera.I have seen 3 and 5 mp cameras that take perfectly fine photos.The little problem would be, that the higher the megapixels, the more memory it uses.Any recomendations for a good camera brand (sony,kodac...)?

All depends on what you want to use the pics for. With a 6Mp or larger, you can get 8x10 blow ups that look like a photograph. 3Mp isn't going to look good at that size. If all you want to do is look at the pics on your PC, 1-3Mp is more than enough. All depends on what you'll be using the camera and pics for.

Also, don't go for just the biggest resolution. Make sure the camera is good quality and had a decent lens. 6Mp with a crappy lens is pretty useless, just like the lens can make or break a 35mm camera's picture quality.

I have a Fuji FinePix 5200. 5.1 MP.

The pics are fantastic and the camera is fully programmable. (If you want...Fully automatic if you so desire.)
If you want to see pics that have been taken with Fuji cameras, go to....
http://www.s5000.net/phpBB2/
Not saying you should buy one, everyone has their own likes and dislikes, but this site will let you see what is possible with 5mp cameras.

The folks here on the forum recommended that I should visit the digital camera reviews at cnet when I was trying to make a decision about my first digital camera. Just spend a litle time reading up on cameras and you'll know shortly which one is best for you.

I liked the editors reviews as well as the readers reviews on individual cameras. The readers reviews are brutaly honest but thats what you want to help make your decision. You can sort by price, manufacture, megapixel and so forth.

The best part for me was the "price grabber"! This feature on the site will look up all of the available outlets for your particular camera across the nation and post their current prices. Man alive, I saved a ton of my hard earned cash with that neat little feature. Good luck and be sure to post some pictures soon.

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jetman
Silver 86 SE 2M6 4-speed, with "check wallet light"

quote Originally posted by jetman: The folks here on the forum recommended that I should visit the digital camera reviews at cnet when I was trying to make a decision about my first digital camera. Just spend a litle time reading up on cameras and you'll know shortly which one is best for you. I liked the editors reviews as well as the readers reviews on individual cameras. The readers reviews are brutaly honest but thats what you want to help make your decision. You can sort by price, manufacture, megapixel and so forth. The best part for me was the "price grabber"! This feature on the site will look up all of the available outlets for your particular camera across the nation and post their current prices. Man alive, I saved a ton of my hard earned cash with that neat little feature. Good luck and be sure to post some pictures soon.

Gotta tell you...
I've been looking for a digital camera too, but have been kind of blown away by the variety.
This site is awesome! Thanks for sharing that link. Just made my life quite a bit easier.

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Raydar
88 4.9 Formula IMSA Fasback..........................88 3.4 coupe................................................

Read Nealz Nuze! Praise the Lowered!

If you're just going to use it to get pictures to put on the forum (or other areas of the internet), anything over 2 MP is probably enough. With my 7.1 megapixel Olympus Stylus 720 SW, I have to really bring the sizes down in order to post them here or all you'd see is the "100k+" pics. The 7.1 megapixels are a little bit of overkill for the forum. I don't really blow up my pictures either and print them out.....so why did I get this camera? Its waterproof to 10ft. and shockproof to 5 ft., which means I can take it pretty much anywhere and not have to worry about it. I've taken it into swimming pools and taken video and pictures underwater. That was the clincher for me, the 7.1 MP was just a nice little side-note.

Edit: Heh, my camera showed up on the first page of that CNET site, under "rainy day cameras".

[This message has been edited by Tinton (edited 08-06-2006).]

Like mentioned above... It all depends what you want to do with it. You're the only one that can sort that part out.

The basic guidlines above, especially quality optics, are all good. If you want Zoom, you want as much optical zoom as you can get. You don't want to use digital zoom much if at all if you can avoid it.

Also... Combined optical and digital is not the same as the whatever amount of true optical zoom.

Digital zoom is the camera doing a software resize much like you'd do on your PC. Depending on what you will be outputting to, digital zoom can seriously degrade the image.

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Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurasic Park)

The Ogre's Fiero Cave (It's also at the top of every forum page...)

I agree wholeheartedly on optics... get one with a good lens. I use my old Sony Mavica F91 for everything from moon shots to macrozoom closeups of circuit boards to show solder cracks on surface mount stuff. Not even a megapixel, saves shots to a floppy disc, and it's large, so not a tourist camera. But on the other hand, floppies are still pretty good for tossing in a file, and the rechargable battery (same as their camcorders) has lasted me over a year on a charge at times... I just put the battery in the charger, I can't for the life of me remember how long ago it was that I last had to charge it. It has a lot of neat usable options if your into more than point and shoot, but works just fine with everything set to auto. Cost me $20 used plus $49.95 for a new battery a few years back. I still use it all the time for documenting things or just to take wildlife or flower photos. Used to be the camera of choice for real estate people when it was new and cost about a grand.