We're expecting our first child in about six months, and one of the items that I consider essential baby equipment is a decent digital camera. I LOVE my Rebel SLR (35 mm) and I will never give it up in a million years. But I know that with a new baby, we'll go broke processing the thousands of daily snapshots that are bound to be demanded by both first-time grandmas. My mom has a Canon Powershot A620 which I really love. It takes beautiful pictures. It's 7.4 megapixels and the shots can be enlarged to 11 x 17 according to the booklet. There's an earlier model of that camera that's only 5 megapixels that is a little more in my price range, and I guess I really don't know how much difference that makes. Any words of wisdom from you wise scrappin' ladies out there??

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My husband and I got some good shots with a 5 megapixel camera and also used an early Powershot that was only 3 mp. But we weren't enlarging them a great deal. Right now we're working with an 8 mp and a 7.5 mp and get great results with both. Neither is a DSLR as both my husband and I want smaller cameras with less weight for our photo outings. One of the big complaints moving from an SLR to a point & shoot seems to be shutter lag. Your experience with an SLR makes you a good candidate for a DSLR.

There are a number of things to consider. Will you be enlarging prints to 11 x 17? Do you want a small camera that's easy to tuck into a pocket or purse vs. a DSLR that's more bulky? How much money do you plan to spend?

I'm not familiar with the Powershot A620. Perhaps someone who has experience with that camera will coment.

Congrats on the baby.

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This was the exact question my husband and I were asking a few months ago. I think it depends on YOU. We opt'd for a ultra compact 5.0 (with a reasonable price) and a 6.0 DSR (months later to use with our SLR lenses). Since I believe that a good photo is taken correctly by thinking ahead and not relying on cropping, the 5.0 and 6.0 work just fine. I do crop most of my pictures, but the essense of the pic should already be there. I've yet to really blow anything up to anything larger than an 8x10. It all depends on your style.

I don't know the answer to this question - but I too have the A620, and my DH recently had one our pictures printed 12x18 - no editing or cropping since he has no clue how and I was VERY impressed with how great it looked, not even the slightest distortion! It seems that prices have been dropping lately, maybe if you wait a few months these will come down a bit?

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Lucrecia

Here is the info I learned when shopping for my Canon. The A510/A520 are both excellent cameras, but they have a slight lag time. The A620 has a faster processor so no lag. All of the Canon cameras in these series take excellent images, with my little A510 3.2MP cranking out images that are often over 2MB in size (5MP Kodak I tried first was under 1MB for the image files).

Another camera to consider is the Canon S2IS, with the prices dropping not too long ago. It has a huge Zoom, image stabilization (no shaking), and the option of taking videos and snapping photos at the same time (great for recording the baby's firsts). This is the next camera I am aiming to buy, since the price is reasonable and features are excellent.

If you want to find more info on the cameras, check out dpreview.com. It is a great place to compare makes and models in your price range, and provide sample images for many different models. Good luck!

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Colleen in Friendly Manitoba...
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I opted for the larger camera (digital rebel) than a pocket size, I hate the shutter lag of digital camera's . I really think it made a big difference in getting that one chance shot.

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Becky's Blog.

just had to comment on this.. the resolution is really meaningless unless you are a professional photographer that is going to do some tight crops and then try to print larger than 11x17. For most amateurs.. 4MP is plenty. The more important factor is knowing how to take photos and learning how to clean them up in photoshop.... the # of MP's is really not all that important.

Agree with Pesto that the # of MP isn't that important. Unless you're increasing photos to the size of a barn.

I'd look at the features that are important to "YOU". We run 3 cameras and are getting ready to buy the Nikon D200 also. But we have a small Nikon that fits in a pocket that we bought earlier in the year...and runs on the same batteries our other two cameras do. We wanted a small one, that had a viewfinder in it. We have a digital Olmpus SLR (too big for me, my husband uses it) and another Olmpus that is bigger than the little point and shoot Nikon. All were purchased because of the features we liked and wanted and how we wanted to use them. In some situtations we didn't want to drag along a bigger camera...in others we want the best quality, in others we need quick shots. (spot metering, shooting in RAW, a quick shutter, a view finder, the ability to attach a secondary light source, weight, feel when you hold it in your hands--features, features, features) Have fun deciding!