Digital or not to Digital??

That is the question

Anyways, I've been really enjoying my film camera experience, and have no intentions of moving to CCD yet. What I REALLY want to get is a digital camera as my vacation camera, lunar camera, sports camera... a do all digi cam if you like. What cameras UNDER $450 right now would you suggest? I've looked at the Nikon Coolpix 995, but it's a tiny bit out of the price I'd like to spend, and it's a bit on the large side for a travel camera. I've also looked at the Nikon Coolpix 2500, which is small and lightweight, but it's only 2MP and only has an LCD screen, so the batteries are used whenever the camera is on.

So which camera(s) would everyone suggest that is a good quality camera, takes Good to Very Good pictures (2.0 Megapixels and up), has good color balance in photos, durable???

The newer, lighter, smaller, metal cased, does all that the CoolPix 995 did and then some, CP4500 is shown at Pricegrabber.com at a price of $437 and the next highest price at $489:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?T2F615822

If you can at all swing it, you will be patting yourself on the back for getting one. I've had and used the CP995 for over a year, and am impressed with the strides made on this newer model... GREAT 4 megapixel images and a superb lens and readily available (inexpensive) direct-coupler mounts etc to get you into astro-imaging on a budget!

The swiveling function is super, and one of many facets I miss after moving over to a Canon D60 (I wanted a CMOS SLR for prime focus, longer exposures etc).

Here's an M42 image done last year with the lesser CP995 and a little weiner-dog 8" scope. Visit my site to see more CoolPix 995 images:

http://www.astro-nut.com/

Oh yeah, I almost forgot... these Nikons are great for "normal" use too!

Paul

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Hello!

Well, I wanted a travel camera a couple of years ago that took hi-res (3+mp) pics but I needed it to be small. My budget was a little higher than yours so I ended up with a Sony DSC-1 which I still use quite a bit to this day.

In order to make my decision tho, I really used the heck out of this web site:

http://www.dpreview.com/

It has one of the most comprehensive set of reviews and forums of actual users.

Hope this helps!

James

I have a Cannon that is several years old so my comments might not apply, but it is my guess that the LCD screen can be turned off precisely for the reason of saving battery time.

My cannon is 3mpix and is quite compact. They make an elph line that is incredibly small, but they may be limited to 2mpex. I believe that they are smaller than a deck of cards.

Alan