[OFB Cafe] Inexpensive cameras

[Donald R Spoon]

>
> I'm looking for something decent and inexpensive and small. I like  
> > the Canon
> > SD1100 so far.
> >
> > What are your opinions??
>   
I am not a camera expert by any stretch of the imagination, but my I 
offer another suggestion based on my recent experiences?

We were searching around for something to replace our old Sony tape 
camcorder that our daughter had been using to record events for her 
growing family.  She was having problems with the tapes and getting 
everything converted to digital format, which she preferred.  We found 
the Panasonic SDR-S10P1 hand-held digital camera at a local Circuit City 
and it looked really good.  It isn't available anymore, but here are 
some reports and specs at NewEgg for the curious 
(http://tinyurl.com/566e83)  It is water-resistant and shock resistant 
up to a 4-ft drop.  It run on a small Li-battery about the size of a 
postage stamp and used standard SD memory cards.  The really neat thing 
was that it worked in relatively low-light levels and was about the size 
of a pack of cigarettes... it can easily fit in your shirt pocket.  It 
provided about an hour of video recording time, depending on how much 
you used the zoom feature and what format you record in.  It also had a 
setting where you could take stills and store them on the SD card 
alongside any video you had. 

It was perfect for my daughter, so we bought it along with a 4 Gig SD 
card and gave it to her for Christmas.  I looked at the store model so 
longingly, that my wife went back and bought another for me! 

The thing takes as good of pictures as my old Kodak DS3400 digital.  It 
is quite convenient, but these old arthritic hands haved a bit of 
trouble with the small controls...  Both of us have "tested" 
(accidentally) the shock resistance feature.  Mine survived, but my 
daughter's didn't.  Her husband was  trying to hook up the charger and 
accidentally knocked if off a table & the LCD viewing screen wouldn't 
light up.  Panasonic fixed it under warranty.

I recently took my grandson to see the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & 
Baily Circus a few weeks ago.  I took several pictures of him with the 
animals in the "preview show" for kids, and then did a video with lots 
of zooms of the first half of the show (a little over an hour) before 
the battery gave out and the unit would do anymore.

You can store a LOT of still pics in 4 Gigs!  I don't think the circus 
bit put much of a crimp in my SD memory either.

I offer this as an alternative... combo video and camera using SD 
technology.  There are probably others than Panasonic, but I really like 
mine because of its size!  This is why I gave up on lugging around all 
my 35mm "stuff"!

Cheers,
-Don Spoon-