[plug] Digital cameras with gphoto/linux...

[Ben Jensz]

David & Lisa Buddrige wrote:

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>I'm looking at the <= $250 range.  
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You aren't going to get something all that good for that price range.

>Am wanting:
>Linux Support
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See my previous post.

>Ability to take >= 2.0 Megapixel still pictures
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What type of shots will you be taking?  2MP images are 1600x1200, 
whereas 3MP images are 2056x1536 .  So if its purely for taking photos 
to use on a computer (and not to print out), then unless you have a 
large monitor, 2MP might be sufficient.

>LCD Screen on back
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Pretty much all have LCDs.  I haven't seen one without one.

>ability to make short movies (preferrably with sound)
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The movie recording ability on digital cameras is pretty poor.  I think 
the best you'll get is probably 640x480 highly compressed MPEGs (lower 
resolution on cheaper cameras), that won't be that long either.  The 
movie taking ability on digital cameras is generally limited in 
length/size by the buffer in the camera (most memory card formats aren't 
fast enough to write to them in real time).  The camera is designed for 
still images, so its not good at making movies, just like the video 
cameras that can take still images, they are good at recording movies, 
but not good at taking still images.

>USB connections (only have usb on my laptop - no serial at all)
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Pretty much all are USB.

>Any other features are bonus's but not deal-killers
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>Any recommendations/suggestions?
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I personally reckon you'll need to budget for $300-400 at a minimum 
realistically for a digital camera.  Pretty much all of the cheap 
digital cameras are fixed focal length, i.e. no optical zoom.  So any 
zooming is "digital" zoom, i.e. interpolation, which produces very poor 
quality images if used heavily.

Personally I'd recommend a Canon A60, it has 3x optical zoom and is a 
2MP camera.  I had an A70 a few months back now (which is the 3MP 
version of the A60) and the photos taken with it were great.


/ Ben