What to look for in a digital camera?

Going to be needing a digital camera soon for my upcoming college course (Pre-Animation), and decided that since I have a bit of spare cash laying around (CDN$400), that I may as well get a decent one that I'd use for things other than the course after I've completed it and moved on.

Anyways, I've been a bit out of the loop with digital cameras, as the one my family owns is a measly 2.1 mega pixels, which was top-of-the-line back in its day, but dear god it's slow and loud compared to the new ones I've seen people use these days.

Took a quick trip to the local WalMart the other week, and from the looks of things, it's all about the megapixel race still eh? Did the picture quality increase at all over the years, rather than making the taken picture 50 times bigger than your desktop resolution? I really don't need massive pictures, but if a higher megapixel snapshot means it'll look much cleaner when shrunk down, I may want to look into ones above the 8mp range.

Would look into a digital SLR camera, but the price on them is a fair bit too high still, and I already have a film-based one anyhow from when I was initially planning to take photography in high-school (ah, good ol' conflicting timetables).

But basically, is there anything in particular to focus at in a camera these days, brand or specification-wise? Only things I know is that the camera I'm to purchase will be needing SD card support (my preferred stick media), a good optical zoom-range (course requires 3x minimum), a decent megapixel snapshot (3mp minimum, but I want higher), and preferably a rechargeable battery pack, cause god I hate messing with packs of AA batteries after having gotten my Wii.
(the one I was eye'ing at Walmart I recall was $200 some, had 7megapixel, 8x optical zoom, SD support, made by Canon)

A high optical zoom comes in really handy. That's about the only advice I have. 8x optical zoom is pretty decent, I'd seriously consider that Canon for $200 ish.

8x optical zoom canon for $200 sounds like a bargain (make sure it's realy optical) 7 megapix is more than decent, more than that and you realy need a bigger sensor (small sensor + loads of megapixels = loads of noise). www.dpreview.com has a lot of information about cameras.

Don't write off using AA rechargeables necessarily - You can always run a digital camera off duracels in an emergency - but you can't just pick up a specific rechargeable battery when you forget to pack the extra one you need when your main one has discharged.
regards

I will ONLY buy a camera if it uses AAs
Until recently I had a great cannon which was good enough for me at 4Mpx. The battery to replace would cost 50 quid!

Now ive got a good Coolpix 6.2 which uses AAs and has a very good battery life. And s not a problem as new ones can be bought anywwhere

decent video support. I love taking 640x480 30fps video with sound with my little camera, practically made my video camcorder obsolete!

Oh and I love the fact that the new camera has a rechargable battery pack it lasts way longer than AA.

Things that I look for are:

Shutter Lag speed - On compacts you can get some with as little as 0.1 second, which is pretty damn good really.
Megapixel - Compacts start to suffer at high megapixel due to the tiny ccd, however, general rule is bigger is better.
Optical Zoom - Best I've seen on a compact is x5, past there you start getting into Bridge cameras or SLRs.

Sounds to me like if you want something that's nearly an SLR go for a bridge camera, there are plenty about at very reasonable prices, very very fast shutter speeds and plenty of controls... nearly an SLR but not quite, lots cheaper and only one lens.

http://www.dpreview.com/

is quite a good site to get reviews from.

I think I may have been mistaken on the optical zoom of that Canon I mentioned earlier, although I couldn't figure out what its actual zoom was since they were all gone when I went their this morning to check them out. ;/

Anyways, picked me up this Kodak camera today since I figured I may as well just get one from a local place rather than off the net so it'd be much easier to return incase I didn't like, and so far, I'm loving this thing.

12 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, nice crisp shots, and a built-in video-recording function up to 1280x720 resolution, which I didn't learn of until after I purchased it!
(heck, that camera saw more detail in that wall at the full resolution than my naked eye could with the crap lighting this room has)

Could have wished for a higher optical zoom, but as Rob mentioned, it doesn't seem to go above 5x for these compact models, and all the larger models I saw were all SLR-enabled and costed an extra $200 just for 5x more zoom, which I couldn't justify at this time on my budget.

Quite happy with it so far, and I got a 30-day no-questions return warrenty from WalMart (with a 1-year manufacturer warrenty), so it's good 'till mid-September, which is more than enough time to see if it works good in my course.


Anyways, on another subject now, is there a recommended type of rechargable batteries for these things? All the compact models I saw used AAs (where-as the more expensive 'bridge' cameras had packs, but those cameras were oddly shaped), and all I know of is that lithium ion rechargable batteries are the way to go, but then I see things like 2500nm and what not regarding the charge, so uh, any advice regarding that?
(I assume I'd have to pay-out for a charger as well)

I wouldn't go for less than a DSLR. For your budget, buy a used one. You won't get a Leica for that money, but a Nikon D50 or Pentax *istD family member should be within your reach.

Nikon has the better software support, but I'm an old Pentax fan, so I'm biased. (The Pentax K10D is next on my shopping list.) Canon supposedly has the best (affordable) DSLRs on the market, but I never used one, so that's just hearsay.

I cannot recommend using lenses made for analog SLRs on a DSLR, there are just too many issues with it that basically ruin the experience. The Sigma 18-200 is an acceptable "always on" lens when you don't have the money to get a decent set of fixed focal width lenses, and it's available for most camera bodies on the market. I think it's a good start.

Go for:

1: clarity of the evf (electronic view finder}
2: depth of focus
3: basically the fuji film finepix s304

s304 can do the following pics:-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigbangballoons/

but the DREAM camera is the canon eos 400D

battery life: get some >2100 mAh rechargeables (take 4xAAs)

Weight, simple usage (nothing too much menchanical which can break) and *whoohooo* battery life! Sonys are the best! :O)

ohhh, another confession, I'm an ex R/C Car geek, (>batteries = win races) basically, Nicads are old hat, NiMH are okay as long as you buy some with a big a number as possible ( >2000, the higher you go the more money you pay). Basically, think of the numbers on the batteries as 'how much capacity they've got). that's it, hope this helps. rechargeable battery packs are great as long as they keep getting produced.... AA's will be produced for a while yet.... and it's the same hardware in essence, greater maH rating = more longevity.

Don't look for anything, read reviews.
Its no good having 10x optical zoom with 12.1mp if the camera takes shit pictures.

You can get packs with chargers and high rated batteries - I got some 2500 rated which last for ages. Just get a charger which has a sensor to detect when the batteries are full. It's also worth discharging them fully before charging them up each time as they hold more charge that way.
Regards.