Tobra

Got a 2 liter 1974 914 project car and would like to get a digital camera to document progress and allow me to ask stupid questions, with pictures, at 914club.com. I know there are some photography buffs here. Looking to spend between $200-$300. On paper, I am of course buying this for my practice, there are a few advantages to being self employed.

e3NiNe

$200 to $300?

When did you need the camera? Dell runs coupons frequently and the Canon SD400 can be purchased (w/ 512 card) anywhere between $280 and $320.

DakarM

canon sd400 is a good bet.

HawtPants

yep, the sd would be my next camera *if i were to buy a new one

Tobra

Probably will get it in the next week or two, but it is really no rush. It will be useful in the office, particularly for tracking wounds, and doing pre and post op photos. Nice little adjunct to radiographs.

jclau00

new canons just announced last week, sd450 sd550 a610 a620.

so the sd400 sd500 a510 a520 a95 should be dropping in price soon.

MrFatbooty

I take it as a podiatrist you don't need a more specialised setup like say, what a dentist would need. But I also take it you're going to be doing all of these pictures indoors without a huge amount of light.

The problem with most compact digital cameras is that when you turn up the sensitivity (ISO) to anything above the lowest setting you get ugly color noise in the picture. So you have to use the flash indoors pretty much all the time since you stick with a lower ISO to avoid the noise, but then the light from the flash isn't particularly flattering either. Light from a compact camera's flash is particularly blechy when it comes to showing say, people's skin properly, so when using the camera for a medical application this is particularly relevant.

Fuji makes a camera called the Finepix F10 that has a newfangled image sensor called Super CCD. I won't get into the technical details of it, but basically it's the first non-SLR digital camera that you can turn the ISO up past the lowest one or two settings and get acceptable image quality. You can actually turn it up a lot and still get acceptable image quality. This allows you to get shots in low light without using the flash.

I've attached some sample shots (kinda big, click the thumbnails) from the dpreview.com article on the F10, taken with the camera set to ISO 800. Most non-SLR digital cameras either don't have an ISO 800 setting, or if they do it's ridiculously noisy and the images are barely usable. The image noise at ISO 800 from the Fuji F10 is more like the noise from a typical non-SLR digicam at ISO 200 or 100 depending on which other camera it is and how noisy it is.

Aside from this one notable feature, the camera is pretty much yer standard pocket-sized digital, perhaps a bit on the large side of things for its size segment. Price should fall in your range.

Tobra

They had one in the Wound Care Center in Conroe that was mega bad ass, macro, all that. Don't really need that, but I knew young Michael(kind of a Goyim first name, how about Gfell, then you could be G money)would come through with the straight dope. I have a pretty bright 150 watt round spot in a nice focused housing in every treatment room. I can light it up really well, stick a blue towel in for background and lay a disposable ruler next to it for scale. Camera will be multiple use, work, car resto pics, etc

Tobra

Canon SD 300from dell$350, might have a winner, will actually haul my ass out and look ast some stuff next weekend

e3NiNe

SD400 ... there's a huge difference.