The Snappiest Snaps - The Best Digital Camera Prices under $250 will Fetch You
The passion I have for all things photographic doesn't necessarily lead to a great eye for perfect artistic photography. But I really love cameras, and over the last ten years that digital cameras have been gaining in popularity, you can bet that I've been watching, and recording every advance in consumer photography technology with a little more interest than you could call normal. And the one advance I like best is how the best digital camera prices have fallen and fallen, while the quality of the pictures you can take on these has grown better and better.
$250 is some kind of magic price point for digital cameras; you get the most action, the most features in this bracket, more so than any other price category. Ten years ago, every camera you could get at this price, came with an optical viewfinder and ran on dimestore batteries. Now they all have LCD screens, and are rechargeable. Back then, you got about 2 megapixels and 2X optical zoom on a perfectly respectable $250 digital camera. That's what you get on a cell phone today. Well, it is time again this year, to find out what new benchmarks are possible in the best digital camera prices and models.
Pretty much, $250 now, can buy you a really intelligent model with 12 megapixels, HD video capture, and large 3-inch LCDs. Every brand, Panasonic, Canon, Sony's CyberShot and Fuji, all throw in indispensable features like image stabilization, super wideangle lenses, and face recognition. Of course every brand out there has its own take on how to mix these features in, and that's where all the fun of it lies. And a certain amount of compromise is on par for the range too; they don't come with great internal processors - that means that you don't get instant action when you press down the shutter button; you also get a certain amount of grain, shooting in low light. But people with a general interest in photography who are on the lookout for the best digital camera prices out there do not really have gripes like these. They want the best photography experience for their buck, and do they get it!
The Sony Cyber-Shot W290, is about the cheapest major brand camera you will find. At $160, they do have to leave a few things out though. For instance, it can shoot in HD, but the pictures aren't razor-sharp, and it can't zoom while in HD mode. On the other side of the feature rivalry is the over-endowed Samsung Dual View TL225, that sells for just $100 more than the Cyber-Shot. For those who want to really appear in their own photographs, this camera plants a small second screen on the front. And if you just can't get your child to smile for the photo, that little screen can show a funny picture for that effect. The main screen has great touch response on the biggest screen on the market - 3.5". If you want to delete something, you draw an X over it; and if you want to shuffle through pictures, you just have to swipe them. And the picture quality is great too. The Lumix DMC-ZS3 has one of the best digital camera prices on the market - $225. It's a camera, but it is also a camcorder. It has a dedicated record button for video recording, and it uses AVCHD Lite or Motion JPEG for it. The user interface is excellent, and so are the photos.
Of all the cameras out there, the Lumix certainly gives you the best bang for your buck; the Samsung has a great user interface and great picture quality, and the Fuji F70EXR has great lowlight photography. For the best digital camera prices like these will bring you, you get to choose. It's a toss up between these three.