Anyone have a digital camera to recommend? Under $400, for simple
point and shoot use? Something a little bit durable if I take it
out hiking and drop it in the dirt. My little lomos don’t work
for casual outings and trips.
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The urban planner in me is a little upset that there’s been some recent buzz about “Rural Chic”
as the next big housing development idea. Let’s dress up the
boonies and sell it to urbanites who want to get in touch with their
inner Thoreau or Emerson, and give it a label, such as “Cracker Modern”
(I’m not kidding, that phrase is taken directly from the Times
article). Yay, let’s pay money for a Viking stove near
hillbillies.
The only thing that I’ve found more offensive is Evil K’s abuse of the
phrase “Favela Chic.” When I was in Bush-family territory,
Kennebunkport, Maine, my jaw dropped from the sight of a shop, which casually bore the same name. Wow, the rich are different from you or me.
I am really happy with my Casio Exilim Z-55. I splurged on a gig of memory, and the combination is great. It’s got decent zoom, nice color, low shuter lag, and plenty of options. It’s fantastic for travelling, very light and fits nicely in a pouch that can clip to your belt. With the gig of memory you can get upto an hour of video (or 500 5 M pictures) and it looks decent and even picks up decent sound depending on the conditions.
Oh, just saw your update. To me what’s really offensive about that is the extent to which that will only further our energy and environmental problems.
I hear good things about Casio ultracompacts, too. If durability is a big issue, then the camera I have is pretty much as good as you get, the Canon S410 or S500 (4 Mpx and 5 Mpx). They feel extremely solid. Hm. They seem discontinued, though, and replaced by the SD400 and SD500 (5 Mpx and 7 Mpx). I don’t know if the smaller size makes them less durable, but I imagine they’re probably still good buys. Amazon has the SD400 for $340. I haven’t felt one in person, but that would probably be my recommendation.
I’ve had some very good experiences with the Sony DSC-S40. It’s not the newest, fanciest, or smallest of cameras — but the size is still conveniently small, the features are great (e.g. easy manual tweaking of settings, one of the shortest inter-shot delays of any non-SLR digital camera, especially in burst mode), and the price is right (can be found for $220 CAD here in Toronto). I’ve been able to take some really nice shots with it on my recent trips.
I used to have a Sony, a DSC-P5, and now my dad has a P10, and they both do pretty terribly for indoors shots. Even with flash, they tend to come out dark, so I’m not buying another Sony any time soon. The Canons I’ve used take much better indoor flash shots. That said, the S40 seems like a different line, so I dunno. Maybe they’ve fixed those problems?
My Sister’s Sony Cybershot. . .some large model—has really not good color. It’s hard to correct for on photoshop, and annoying.