Digital camera - optical zoom vs higher resolution?
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Hi, My gf wants to buy a digital camera so we've been looking around a bit, reading up on them etc., but a lack of experience makes it hard to decide on the following question: what is better, more megapixels or more optical zoom? In concreto, the choice it between something like the canon a80 and the minolta z1 (that's about the price range we're looking in). The camera will be used for shooting vacation pictures mainly, but maybe she'll take a photography course some day so some manual control is required. Anyway, what do you experienced photographers say? A disadvantage of the z1 is it's shape which makes it hard to put in a pocket, but if the 10x optical zoom is useful, we could live with that; my concern is more: how often does one really need a 10x zoom? Thanks.
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Hi, My gf wants to buy a digital camera so we've been looking around a bit, reading up on them etc., but a lack of experience makes it hard to decide on the following question: what is better, more megapixels or more optical zoom? In concreto, the choice it between something like the canon a80 and the minolta z1 (that's about the price range we're looking in). The camera will be used for shooting vacation pictures mainly, but maybe she'll take a photography course some day so some manual control is required. Anyway, what do you experienced photographers say? A disadvantage of the z1 is it's shape which makes it hard to put in a pocket, but if the 10x optical zoom is useful, we could live with that; my concern is more: how often does one really need a 10x zoom? Thanks.
Its more important that it fits in you pocket - You can't take any pictures if you don't have it with you.
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Hi, My gf wants to buy a digital camera so we've been looking around a bit, reading up on them etc., but a lack of experience makes it hard to decide on the following question: what is better, more megapixels or more optical zoom? In concreto, the choice it between something like the canon a80 and the minolta z1 (that's about the price range we're looking in). The camera will be used for shooting vacation pictures mainly, but maybe she'll take a photography course some day so some manual control is required. Anyway, what do you experienced photographers say? A disadvantage of the z1 is it's shape which makes it hard to put in a pocket, but if the 10x optical zoom is useful, we could live with that; my concern is more: how often does one really need a 10x zoom? Thanks.
Nigel makes an excellent point - if you can't conveniently carry it, you won't have it when you want it. I hate to say that, as I'm very partial to Minolta. My first 'modern' camera was a Minolta SRT101. Regarding the zoom vs resolution issue, though, I'd opt for more resolution. You can buy add-on lenses to increase the magnification when you need it, but no accessory I know of will increase the resolution. My digicam has a 10x zoom, and I do use it a lot, but having 5 Mpx resolution is far more valuable to me. My only regret is that I wish I had waited a year or so until the cost of an SLR model dropped a bit. Some people think of it as a six-pack; I consider it more of a support group.
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Its more important that it fits in you pocket - You can't take any pictures if you don't have it with you.
a good read: http://www.dcresource.com/faq/faq.html excellent resource. personally i dont believe in more resolution unless u really wanna printout in a large size. optical zoom is the real one, but size and price increases with more opt zoom...man, go for that canon powershot 4x series, compact/sexy ones!!;P
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Hi, My gf wants to buy a digital camera so we've been looking around a bit, reading up on them etc., but a lack of experience makes it hard to decide on the following question: what is better, more megapixels or more optical zoom? In concreto, the choice it between something like the canon a80 and the minolta z1 (that's about the price range we're looking in). The camera will be used for shooting vacation pictures mainly, but maybe she'll take a photography course some day so some manual control is required. Anyway, what do you experienced photographers say? A disadvantage of the z1 is it's shape which makes it hard to put in a pocket, but if the 10x optical zoom is useful, we could live with that; my concern is more: how often does one really need a 10x zoom? Thanks.
It would be interesting if you could tell the sensor size from the resources you've been using to compare these two camera's. Sensor size is far more important than number of pixels :) Unfortunately this is often neglected by the marketing depts of camera firms (probably because they don't want us to know just how tiny some of these sensors are). While digital zoom is essentially useless, optical zoom is just what you want. Of course, the amount you'll want to zoom is only something you can judge (sorry :) ). If you look down this page[^] you will see a very interesting white, blue, green and red diagram explaining sensor sizes. Hope that helps :)
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Hi, My gf wants to buy a digital camera so we've been looking around a bit, reading up on them etc., but a lack of experience makes it hard to decide on the following question: what is better, more megapixels or more optical zoom? In concreto, the choice it between something like the canon a80 and the minolta z1 (that's about the price range we're looking in). The camera will be used for shooting vacation pictures mainly, but maybe she'll take a photography course some day so some manual control is required. Anyway, what do you experienced photographers say? A disadvantage of the z1 is it's shape which makes it hard to put in a pocket, but if the 10x optical zoom is useful, we could live with that; my concern is more: how often does one really need a 10x zoom? Thanks.
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Hi, My gf wants to buy a digital camera so we've been looking around a bit, reading up on them etc., but a lack of experience makes it hard to decide on the following question: what is better, more megapixels or more optical zoom? In concreto, the choice it between something like the canon a80 and the minolta z1 (that's about the price range we're looking in). The camera will be used for shooting vacation pictures mainly, but maybe she'll take a photography course some day so some manual control is required. Anyway, what do you experienced photographers say? A disadvantage of the z1 is it's shape which makes it hard to put in a pocket, but if the 10x optical zoom is useful, we could live with that; my concern is more: how often does one really need a 10x zoom? Thanks.
Here is a good read.
"When I was born I was so surprised that I didn't talk for a year and a half." - Gracie Allen
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Hi, My gf wants to buy a digital camera so we've been looking around a bit, reading up on them etc., but a lack of experience makes it hard to decide on the following question: what is better, more megapixels or more optical zoom? In concreto, the choice it between something like the canon a80 and the minolta z1 (that's about the price range we're looking in). The camera will be used for shooting vacation pictures mainly, but maybe she'll take a photography course some day so some manual control is required. Anyway, what do you experienced photographers say? A disadvantage of the z1 is it's shape which makes it hard to put in a pocket, but if the 10x optical zoom is useful, we could live with that; my concern is more: how often does one really need a 10x zoom? Thanks.
I'd personally go with greater zoom. The difference between 3 and 4 Mpx won't be that noticable unless you make larger prints, IMO. BW The Biggest Loser
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Hi, My gf wants to buy a digital camera so we've been looking around a bit, reading up on them etc., but a lack of experience makes it hard to decide on the following question: what is better, more megapixels or more optical zoom? In concreto, the choice it between something like the canon a80 and the minolta z1 (that's about the price range we're looking in). The camera will be used for shooting vacation pictures mainly, but maybe she'll take a photography course some day so some manual control is required. Anyway, what do you experienced photographers say? A disadvantage of the z1 is it's shape which makes it hard to put in a pocket, but if the 10x optical zoom is useful, we could live with that; my concern is more: how often does one really need a 10x zoom? Thanks.
I've a Canon A40 and can definitely recommend that product range. As well as producing pics which are of incredible quality for a camera of its price range, it's also damn near indestructable and can run off AA batteries. If anything happened to my A40 I'd definitely buy an A80. :) With the increased resolution of the A80 over the A40, you may just find that the digital zoom is actually useable on the A80. The bottom line is of course how the picture quality compares between the two cameras... Anna :rose: Homepage | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work. Trouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Visual C++ Add-In