Digital Camera suggestions

[harvardian]

Hi,

I am trying to decide on a new Digital Camera. This is for general family photos, some photos to document assembly (our new kit), pictures of my wife's art work (room murals).

1) Olympus C5050Z
2) Sony F717 (or the new DSC-V1 in May)
3) Canon G3
4) Nikon 5700
5) Minolta 7i

Other?

I want it to have low light AF illumination.
Support rechargable AA batteries (rules out some above)
External Flash unit
Large memory (CF1, CF2)

Thanks

Dale

[BrianGT]

Dale,

www.dpreview.com has great reviews of all of the cameras mentioned. Be sure to check out their sample images in the camera reviews.

My favorite of the ones that you mentioned is the Canon G3. I have seen and used the G2, and love it. I have a Canon Pro90IS and love the interface. Also, think about form factor for the camera, when not in use. The G3 is fairly small compared to the rest and easy to tote around, especially compared to the Sony. The G3 also does work great with flash units. The G3 doesn't support rechargable AA batteries, but the battery that it uses is great (same as my Canon battery), and lasts quite a long time.

512meg and 1gb compact flash card prices are going down.

I have heard good things about the Nikon camera, but haven't seen one in person.

--
Brian

[harvardian]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the feedback. I have checked out all of the review sites. dpreview, steves-digicams, imaging-resource, dcresource, etc...

They all seem to lean for different cameras.

I did check out the Canon G3, Nikon, and Olympus yesterday. No pictures, but I agree that the Canon had the nicest feel. The only tradeoff is 4 vs 5 MP, but it does have 4X zoom.

Dale

[Peter Daniel]

Did you check this thread? digital camera advice

I'm using Olympus 4040 and I like it. I chose it because of 1.8 lenses and overall appearance. I don't think you will really need 5Meg, but new cameras have better features. My other choice was Nikon, but the lense was't that bright and the price was almost 1.5 more than Olympus a year ago. If you like the feel of Canon (I didn't) it might be a good choice too, lots of people like it.

But truly, I think that you can't go wrong with Nikon. I owned few analog Nikons, 801 and two F4 bodies, later switched to Canons, but Nikon was something I always liked. I guess it's a matter of personal prefference.

As to batteries, if you keep enough spares, you don't really need AA type. Olympus runs on AA, but I always use one of three rechargable sets I have at my disposal. Never had to buy additional batteries for any reason.

[harvardian]

Thanks All.

I pulled the trigger on the Canon G3 with trimmings.

I'll post impressions.

Dale