if you had $500 what would be the best digital camera to buy ?

[ZL1]

Hi


question for the photo enthusiasts: whats a good digital camera for abouut $500 ?

its actually a stretch for me but I started from $200 and I kept going up (didnt really like what a 200 or 300 cam can do )

recently looked at the Canon G3, Olympus 740,750 and the 4000
the 4000 looks pretty good price/quality ratio, but if 500 will get me a much better cam I'll stretch it somehow

please help, Ive been going nuts looking through reviews and samle images just cant choose



Thanks
Dan

[Droppyale]

Personaly I think the Cannon G3 would be the best buy....

you can read reviews for that camera and others here www.dpreview.com

[ZL1]

Originally posted by Droppyale
Personaly I think the Cannon G3 would be the best buy....

you can read reviews for that camera and others here www.dpreview.com

Hi

yes its a very good camera indeed, but here is why Im still undecided - indoor pictures, the olympus does better indoor, even the 4000 which is $150 cheaper than the G3 does better indoors and that is bothering me alot because if I spend so much (and this is actually a truckload of money for me) Id like a camera that will do good(actually I hope for great ) indoors and outdoors

do you own a G3 ? any chance you have some pics that you took with it online ?


Thanks
Dan

[darrelld]

I also vote for the G3, I have a G2, it is a great camera. The g3 is the same with 4x optical zoom. Plus they are the only cameras I've seen with a repositionable LCD screen, which means its not exposed to possible damage when it's not in use, and you can see it for self portraits.

[Droppyale]

www.dpreview.com has a great review, and talks about everything you need to know, and they even have sample shots.

here's the conlusion :

Conclusion - Pros
Excellent resolution, one of the best performances of a four megapixel
Good metering, good tonal balance which maintains shadow detail
Good natural light white balance, strong and balanced colours
Control over cameras internal processing algorithms (saturation, tone, sharpness)
Low noise at ISO 50, not as clean at ISO 100, more sensitive than rated value
Good build quality, better overall design and control layout than the G2
Shooting priority play mode (a half-press of the shutter release always returns to shooting)
Excellent range of manual controls
Good shot-to-shot times, startup time compromised by four second lens extension
Superb fold-out and twist LCD, bright and assisted by anti-reflective coating
Manual focus has magnified loupe and ruler readout
Flexible continuous shooting modes (buffer after processing)
RAW file format maintains 12-bits of data
Ability to turn JPEG shot into RAW during record review
Compact Flash Type I or II and official Microdrive support
Flash hot-shoe, manual flash power, flash sync control (slow / curtain)
Voice annotation feature
Orientation sensor, although JPEG's are only tagged not rotated
Built-in ND filter useful for bright outdoor / flash shots
Intervalometer (time lapse)
Excellent night exposures, should allow exposures longer than 15 seconds
AF assist lamp works well
Included Infrared remote control
Superb battery life, the best we've seen of any prosumer digital camera
Excellent included software suite including remote capture software with live viewfinder
Good accessory support (quality wide angle and telephoto lenses, chargers, case)

Conclusion - Cons
Some chromatic aberrations at or around maximum aperture
Noise at ISO 100 worse than the competition
'Shallow angle jaggies' visible on resolution chart, although not yet seen in 'every day' shots
Viewfinder partially obstructed by lens barrel
Control dial doesn't work well if rotated too quickly
Average macro performance
No nine-point AiAF as seen in the PowerShot S45
Zoom controller does not have enough steps / multiple zoom speed
Status panel is not backlit
Manual mode limits in relation to combinations of aperture and shutter speed (although better than the G2 and most other prosumer digital cameras)

Overall conclusion
Here's my rating of the Canon PowerShot G3: (4 megapixel prosumer)

Detail Rating (out of 10)
Construction 9
Features 9
Image quality 8.5
Lens / CCD combination 9
Ease of use 9
Value for money 9

Here;s the link for the review http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong3/

Sample shots
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong3/page24.asp