[Recovered Thread: 90868]

[stevekahuda]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a camera with some sort of image stabilization. My current camera doesn't have it (very old piece of junk) and sometimes pictures look fine on the lcd, but terrible in reality. I'm looking to spend anywhere between $200 - $400. Zoom is not particularly important to me. Thanks for any advice.

~Steve

[woof72]

Steve,

Not sure the type of digicam you are considering (point & shoot or dslr) but the Konica Minolta range has the anti-shake mechanism built into the camera. It is built around a "moving" CCD

[Tazzie]

Steve

For the money you mentioned, Panasonic. Check out their forum.

The Konica-Minoltas are D-SLRs boughtout and replaced by the Sony Alpha series, yet to debut. The Panasonics are sophisticated point and shoots with Leica lens that are rather incredible. I bought the Panny FZ-20 last year and the KM 5D D-SLR this year. Both have in the body stabilization. Yes, it flat works.

[K4thwright]

I've owned a Konica Minolta A200 advanced point-shoot for about 18 months and can recommend it almost without reservation. Sony has bought out the Konica Minolta line, but the A200 is still available online from B&H at www.bhphotovideo.com, although I have been unable to locate a dedicated flash for it. Go to the B&H site for full specs and features. Price there is $549 + S&H. This is a relatively small camera, much smaller and lighter than DSLRs, and has given me suberb service in shooting events, landscapes, people, etc. There are three things I must have in any camera I buy: 1) at least 8 megapixels because I print lots of enlargements, and even smaller prints sometimes require cropping; 2) image stabilization, which works very well in this camera; and 3) very low shutter lag after initial focus has been reached. Shutter lag is inperceptible to me with my A200, although some reviews have complained about it. I don't believe that those reviewers have had their camera controls set properly, because my shutter trips virtually instantaneously, certainly as fast as reasonably-priced film SLRs perform. Some of the other good things about this camera are 7X optical zoom range: 28-200 mm (35mm equivalent) that is manually set with a zoom ring on the lens, a fast lens ranging from f-2.8 at the wide end to f-3.5 at the tele setting, and a standard 49 mm thread for attaching filters. Steve's Digicams also has an extensive review at http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/a200.html

Good luck.

[E.T]

K4thwright wrote:

but the A200 is still available online from B&H at www.bhphotovideo.com, although I have been unable to locate a dedicated flash for it.

Get Metz MZ-serie flash and you can fit it to any brand shoe by using right adapter module when you buy next camera.

[echinacea]

Do not trust on the image stabilization much. yes it works wellbut a "low noise" camera like fuji F10 or F30 can work as if it has an image stabilization at high sensitivities.