:: Intrepid Spaniel ::

Digital camera reviews can be full of good information but it can be tiresome sifting through all that info to decide which camera to buy. So since I spend several hours per month perusing digital camera reviews, I thought I’d spare some of what I learn and recommend a few of what I’d consider the best cameras in several categories with a basic set of pros and cons. Hopefully making it easier to pick a good camera.

Here are the categories, look for the reviews over the next few weeks. I’m kind of biased towards Canon as you’ll see, but I try to be fair and give others a shot. Read more for some spoilers and deals.

Entry level: Canon Powershot A530 A540, A610

Compact point and shoot, e.g pocket cameras: I really like these because you can take them anywhere.. (Spoiler: I like the Canon SD series aka digital Elph, and Sony and Casio are worth a look.)

Mid range: Canon PowershotA700

Ultra Zoom: Big optical zoom (Canon Powershot S2 and newer S3 IS are my favorites here) S2 is mostly the same, and can be had for a bargain right now. Also look at the Panasonic Lumix FZ series, particularly the FZ30 and the Fuji Finepix s9000

Wide Angle: There are only a few fixed lens wide angle cameras

Entry Digital SLR: Nikon D50, Canon Rebel XT

Prosumer: Canon D5, D20, or D30

When you’ve narrowed your choices down to a couple of models, I recommend reading the full, lengthy review at my favorite review site http://www.dcresource.com and making a trip to the store to try the camera out and see how it feels in your hands.

As for getting the best deal on a camera, online is the way to go, but I do like to support local businesses. If there is interest, I’ll write another article about how I go about finding good online deals

Here a sampling of some deals ending soon… most of these cameras are worthy. The A530 and A610 are good deals…
http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/64087