Is there any camera on earth meeting 4 simple requirements (AA,CF,7x)

Big Bill wrote:

snip


Forgetting the charger will not go away with AAs.
A rush may be an emergency for you, but...
$75 batteries? CU can't show you how to buy something other than OEM?
Adapters for foreign countries will still be required for that AA
charger. And AA chargers still need to be arried around.
And AAs go bad, too.
It would seem that you've not really thought this one through well.

Hi...

I have thought it through, and agree that I do indeed want
AA's whenever possible...

Example. Few years ago visiting South Dakota... darned
memory... the former US presidents carved into a mountain.

Standing close to some folks who had a really really heavy
English accent. We said hello to one another; and they asked
if I knew of a close place out of the "tourist trap" where
they could get some AA alkalines, because there batteries were
close to gone. I didn't - not local, not even American.

But I did loan them my fully charged spare set; we walked
back to the parking lot and put theirs on charge in our car,
and went back to have lunch which would of course give them
at least an hour or two's charging.

They wouldn't take no to paying for lunch; so - given that
our trip was almost over, we didn't take no to them keeping
our spare set of NiMh's.

Everything's so much easier when everyone helps one another,
but could we have done that if it weren't for the compatability
of AA's?

Ken

On 10 Jun 2005 09:44:40 -0700, "Susan (Graphic Artist)"
wrote:



Ron wrote:
The propietary batteries I buy on e-Bay for about seven bucks each
Wow. Can you get me a handful of those seven-dollar proprietary
batteries for my Nikon CoolPix 5700 and my JVC DVL-805U camcorder?

I paid upwards of 50 to 75 dollars for MY proprietary batteries.
And, they always go dead within a year or two; so I'm constantly buying
more, typically in an emergency situation where I drive all day in
Germany to find a battery to fit.

Amazed,
Susan Henderson

Google is your friend!
Here's one for under $25 for the 5700:
http://www.ebatts.com/nikon_coolpix-...5700%20Battery

For the 805U:
http://www.ebatts.com/jvc_gr-dvl805u...rt_b-9556.aspx


--
Big Bill
Replace "g" with "a"

On 10 Jun 2005 00:25:30 -0700, "Susan (Graphic Artist)" wrote:

MY QUESTION:
Can there not be a camera on earth that meets these 4 simple goals?
- AA batteries
- Good photo quality
- 7x to 10x optical zoom
- CF media

Fuji s602z with a teleconverter.

Big Bill wrote:

wrote:

I agree with you. Consumers Union is sometimes wrong.
That's why I asked this newsgroup.
Because I believe this newsgroup more than I believe Consumer Reports.

You might want to broaden your reading a little beyond CU.
Dpreview, Steve's, even the manufacturers themselves, are all on the
Web, with free professional (biased, on the part of the manufacturers,
possibly, albeit technically correct) reviews of most cameras being
recently marketed.
There's certainly nothing wrong with using newsgroups for this, but,
IMO, restricting yourself to CU for technical reviews of digital
cameras means you are missing a *LOT*.

CU is OK for mainstream consumer goods (what do you REALLY expect from a
toaster?), but anything involving enthusiast-level or above is beyond their
reach. I get really tired of hearing about possible shock hazards, too. "If
you straighten out a coat hanger and stick it into this hole right here you
will probably receive a lethal shock."

I used to read the car evaluations in the annual book, but then I realized
that "electrical problems" can mean either a fuse replacement or your entire
wiring harness catching fire.

--
Cheers,
Bev
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Of course "õŽl has four seasons:
Earthquake, Mudslide, Brushfire, and Riot

"Susan (Graphic Artist)" wrote:

Anthony Matonak wrote:
The limiting factors are AA batteries and Compact Flash.
I was wonderin' why there was only 1 or 3 cameras on earth which
satisfied what I thought was a very simple and universally held set of
4 needs ...

it's easy enough to work around memory and batteries ...
I'm sick and tired of proprietary battery packs going bad or forgetting
them or forgetting the charger or carrying them all around or plugging
them in or bringing european adaptors or buying hugely expensive
75-dollar batteries in a rush without being able to shop for price ...

My husband made a battery pack for his walkman out of a double D-size battery
holder from radio shack, some wire and a plug. D batteries are way cheaper to
use than AAs.

--
Cheers,
Bev
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Of course SoCal has four seasons:
Earthquake, Mudslide, Brushfire, and Riot

"Susan (Graphic Artist)" wrote:

Joseph Meehan wrote:
[Proprietary camera] batteries are not that expensive

I just paid $75 for a camcorder battery (Everready Energizer ER-C620)
for my JVC camcorder and I'm on my fourth or fifth $60 battery for my
Nikon CoolPix 5700 so I just might beg to differ with you on that
point. Multi-cell battery packs are highly unreliable (so are AAs
but you can easily swap a bad cell out), especially due to reverse
polarity issues killing the entire pack within a year or two.

Besides the cost, there's the fact that I'm way more likely to be stuck
without juice with the proprietary batteries than with standard-size
batteries.

And, besides the cost and fact my camera is useless for lack of juice,
there's the wide assortment of chargers, wires, and plugs I have to
deal with (as a camera isn't my only electronic stowaway when I
frequently travel).

I just can't believe there are from 1 to 4 cameras on earth which
satisfy these simple requirements (standard batteries, quality photos,
decent zoom, and standard media).

"Decent" zoom is 3x optical, which is common and decent. My Coolpix 800 which
I bought at Thanksgiving 2000 fits your other criteria, so you want
exceptional zoom. You forgot to mention write speed, which I would consider
more important than the zoom. If you get a huge number of megapixels you can
just crop out the middle and there you are.

I'd like the 800 to be faster and I'd especially like it if they'd spent the
extra dime to put a second eyelet on it so I could wear it around my neck like
normal people do. Carrying a camera on your wrist is an open invitation to
smash it against something hard just by unthinkingly turning around quickly.

No, hanging it around my neck using the single eyelet is NOT the same.

--
Cheers,
Bev
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Of course SoCal has four seasons:
Earthquake, Mudslide, Brushfire, and Riot

"Susan (Graphic Artist)" wrote:

There's a reason I list AA above image quality. It's not negotiable.
Neither is image quality, mind you ... my first four requirements a
- standard batteries
- image quality
- reasonable zoom (stabilization was a factor I unknowingly omitted)
- compact flash (I'm still unsure why CR lists microdrive and not CF
for some cameras as the help on DP Review says they are basically the
same thing in the one direction I want to go).

You can use an ordinary CF card in a microdrive hole, but you can't stuff a
microdrive into an ordinary CF hole.

--
Cheers,
Bev
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Of course SoCal has four seasons:
Earthquake, Mudslide, Brushfire, and Riot

"Susan (Graphic Artist)" writes:
MY QUESTION:
Can there not be a camera on earth that meets these 4 simple goals?
- AA batteries
- Good photo quality
- 7x to 10x optical zoom
- CF media

To this you need to add

But I'd like a 5 megapixel or larger (for enlargements if needed).

which you mentioned later.

In fact, those aren't so simple to meet. It's difficult to make a 7 or
10X zoom lens that retains good image quality throughout its range.
That's one reason why the cameras with large zoom ranges tend to have
lower pixel counts (so the sharpness standards are somewhat less).

In the SLR world (both film and digital), the usual tradeoff is to buy a
really long range zoom (e.g. 28-200) and live with the lower image
quality, or buy several shorter-range zooms that together cover the
range, or even include a couple of fixed-focal-length lenses at
particularly critical focal lengths. But you don't have this choice if
the lens isn't removable.

Dave

Big Bill writes:

There's certainly nothing wrong with using newsgroups for this, but,
IMO, restricting yourself to CU for technical reviews of digital
cameras means you are missing a *LOT*.

Consumer Reports is pretty good at evaluating things that you regard as
a commodity, like appliances. If you want a reliable camera that washes
your clothes, er, shoots photos on auto with resolution sufficient for
4x6 prints and nothing more, CR is a good source of info.

But if someone expects to use the camera in non-auto mode, or edit
images in Photoshop, or make large prints, they are an enthusiast (at
least to some extent) and CR's lowest-common-denominator reports leave
out a lot of info they might care about. Newsgroups and review sites
are much better.

Dave

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 16:41:56 -0700, The Real Bev
wrote:


You can use an ordinary CF card in a microdrive hole, but you can't stuff a
microdrive into an ordinary CF hole.


What is this "microdrive hole" you talk about?
http://www.compactflash.org/info/cfinfo.htm
CompactFlash® is a very small removable mass storage device. First
introduced in 1994 by SanDisk Corporation, CF™ cards weigh a half
ounce and are the size of a matchbook. They provide complete
PCMCIA-ATA functionality and compatibility plus TrueIDE functionality
compatible with ATA/ATAPI-4. At 43mm (1.7") x 36mm (1.4") x 3.3mm
(0.13"), the device's thickness is less than one-half of a current
PCMCIA Type II card. It is actually one-fourth the volume of a PCMCIA
card. Compared to a 68-pin PCMCIA card, a CF card has 50 pins but
still conforms to PCMCIA ATA specs. It can be easily slipped into a
passive 68-pin Type II adapter card that fully meets PCMCIA electrical
and mechanical interface specifications.

CompactFlash cards are designed with flash technology, a non-volatile
storage solution that does not require a battery to retain data
indefinitely. CompactFlash storage products are solid state, meaning
they contain no moving parts, and provide users with much greater
protection of their data than conventional magnetic disk drives. They
are five to ten times more rugged and reliable than disk drives
including those found in PC Card Type III products. CF cards consume
only five percent of the power required by small disk drives.

CF cards are also available for data storage using the Microdrive. CF
I/O cards are available as modems, Ethernet, serial, digital phone
cards, laser scanners, BlueTooth wireless, 802.11b WiFi LAN, etc.