Digital-Camera Reviews

I have just had the camera a few days now. As for all the gadgets, its gonna take a while to pick up on all those. Right now I am using it mostly on automatic and casually venturing from that to different settings and comparing to my other digital cameras.

First, I love the 5 mp setting, the camera was very easy to pick up and start right out using .. (like most guys do)

I am impressed with the quality of the pictures. I like the fact that everything is pretty much straight forward. The camera fires up quickly. I tested it with a romote flash sorta like a fill in and it worked flawlessly. The compact flash memory cards are fairly inexpensive and small so you can have a few backups for those multi picture extravaganzas.

The one thing I would love to see addressed on the camera is the batteries... it would be nice to see minolta come with a battery, rechargable, rather than tring to keep up with two or three sets of AA s ... The instruction book... (guess I will have to read or at least review sooner or later ) looks like it covers pretty much anything you can run accross.

Would I recommend this camera? Yes I would but not for the inexperienced guy... when you first look at this camera... there seems to be a lot to digest... but all in all... Love it!

This is my 5th digital camera in approximately the last 4 years. The Dimage 7i a serious upgrade compared to the Nikon 990(3.34 megapixel) I was using. The Nikon is a nice camera, but the Minolta 7i has more functions and greater resolution.

Battery life was my primary concern prior to purchasing the Dimage 7i. That turned out not to be an issue using good NiMH rechargable batteries (1600mAh or above). I was able to get over 70 photos on one set of batteries. I would recommend using the electronic view finder vs the LCD monitor to conserve battery life.

Because the camera is 5 megapixel, have several memory cards at least 128MB, preferably 256MB or above. They fill up fast when using at the higher resolutions.

Take a few minutes to read the manual to learn the tricks of the camera, it is well worth it.

I have heard bad reviews that this particular camera eats batteries, but I have not had any problems with batteries being used up fast. My last camera, which was only 2.2 Megapixels ate batteries much faster than the Dimage 7i. The picture quality is excellent. When the camera is taking pictures in it's best quality, you can see those minute blemishes that you don't usually notice in pictures. This camera is by far the best that I have ever tried. Highly reccommended to buy if you are in the market for a 5.0+ megapixel camera.

I bought this camera a week ago and am returning it tomorrow. It is packed with great features that most cameras in this price range do not offer. The camera was fun and easy to use. It was extremely easy to switch between scene settings and to change the white balance, photo effects, and other settings. The VGA video mode was outstanding, as was the ability to accept wide angle and telephoto lenses.

Unfortunately, the image quality on the unit I received is worse than my 2 year old 2 megapixel Fuji 2600. The images are not very sharp and seem slightly out of focus and noisy. What bothers me the most is that there have been numerous complaints on the internet concerning the less that stellar image quality of the A70 (the A75 is the replacement to the A70). I would have thought that Canon would take steps to correct the design issues with the A70 but they apparently didn't see the need. My other 2 complaints with the camera I received are that the LCD flickers and occasionally displays vertical purple lines (problems reported about the A70) and the amount of noise the zoom and auto-focus make (another common A70 complaint). Lastly, the 9 point AiAf is pretty much worthless. It seldom locked onto the subject I wanted to photograph.

In conclusion, this would have been a great camera to own if Canon had taken the steps to correct the design flaws of the A70. They didn't, and I will be buying a Kodak.

I bought this camera online from Target about 2 months ago and I love it! It has many differant features that make it great to work with. There are a few drawbacks but they are minor... It takes regular AA batteries and can suck the life out of those quite fast, so I would reccomend you buy rechargeables for this bad boy; The auto focus isn't that great so sometimes you end up with a blurry picture. Also when you take video in dim light it shows up kind of dark since there is no light on the camera... But it is an otherwise great camera. This is the first Digital camera I have purchased for myself, I have used many I just didn't own one... LoL It has been wonderful for catching all the special moments I have with my son. Two thumbs WAY WAY up!! :)

A camera worth a thousand words. In the past, i have owned two digital cameras; a Fuji 2600 and a Kodak DX4330. The Canon A75 has far surpasses both of these cameras COMBINED. The camera is very easy to use, and the image quality is GREAT. It comes with a 32mb card which can hold 50+ pictures at the highest quality, and over 300 pictures in the absolute lowest. Then there are several size and quality intervals giving varing numbers of pictures. Not only are the pictures great but the batteries last FOREVER!! I purchases a set of Monster Power cells (NIMH batteries 2100mah), and put them in my camera. I then took my camera with me on a trip to new york, and they lasted from 5 AM all the way to 11:30 at night with the LCD and Redeye Flash on for every picture. Even at 11:30 when i got home again, the camera was still going strong. The best part is, that i NEVER had to change the batteries once the entire time. I got over 125 pictures, plus the added minutes of scrolling through the pictures. At first, i was sceptical that a camera with a 1.8" LCD and powerful flash could last this long but I took a chance, based on Canon's reputation. And a great payoff it was. The Canon A75 is a terrific camera, and I would recomend it to anyone who is in the market for a digital camera.

i've researched Canon 400S Elph, Sony Cybershots, Minolta F100 - all that jazz (see dpreview.com, cnet.com and steves-digicams.com for thorough reviews) and nothing pocketable held up to this Minolta G500 (Olympus left out for consistently poor image quality and construction). Why is the G500 the best?

For starters, 5MP vs. 4 - not always the main concern, but it's easily the finest 5MP in its price range. Sure, Sony has some new 5MPs out that are only about $50 more (although the ones as small as the G500 are around $100 more) but they feel cheap, have inferior reviews, and lack the picture quality of this Minolta. The only real competition for high-res digicams that are highly-pocketable is the Canon Elph 400S, but this Minolta is at least comparable in every respect, and of course it has 25% more megapixels.

Makes fun camera shooting sounds when you snap pics. Gorgeous displays and intuitive controls. Quick and easy... start-up with cool green light on front. Zoom very quick - zips open and shut. great weight to it - not too heavy by any means, but feels solid in your hands - nice ergonomics. I spent $350 - nothing else around that price point compared. Buy it. Peace!

The DiMAGE G500 is a stylish and versatile camera, packing high-quality 5 megapixel images and powerful imaging controls in a compact body. The G500 can be easily slipped into a pocket, purse, or fanny pack. And weighing a mere 7 ounces, this camera will not be a burden, even on long backpacking trips.

Despite its small size, the DiMAGE G500 is packed with great image-making features. The camera gice the photographer total creative control. Color saturation, contrast, and sharpness can be controlled to create the picture you want. You can shoot full manual, aperature priortiy, shutter priority, or use the program modes. And a maximum 9X zoom ratio (3x optical, 3x Digital) provides powerful photographic potential. The lens is equivalent to a 39mm - 117mm zoom on a 35mm camera. Both Memory Sticks and SD Cards can be used alone or in combination. When both memory card types are used in the camera at the same time, up to 640MB of data can be saved depending on the capacity of the cards. The camera has a fast start up time, so you won't miss the great shots, and even has a macro mode. You won't be dissaponted.

Got this camera as a result of the reviews on here. As a summary of what most of them seem to say. It's great, battery life is good, picture quality is spot on. I've even used both memory formats though I didn't think I would. The two problems that seem to have been noticed by other people is red-eye and the amount of time it takes to take a photo. Though I have had red-eye in photos it's never been a problem really and I've never really seen a camera that didn't have red-eye of some sort. As for time taken between shots, I've compared it to a 3MP camera and it was faster, it's slower than my previous camera but that was only 1.4MP which I think has something to do with it.

I admit, I bought the thing because of the cool factor. And yes, you will get people gawking at this gadget in public. And I guess I knew going in that it was just for fun pictures, nothing serious.

Given that, it performs well. But yes, the shutter slows way down in low light causing more blurry pictures than I'd like. And the flash is only good for a few feet (up to 6ft according to the specs). But if you can learn to live with its shortcomings, it's a fun little gadget.

It has many very useful functions like white balance and exposure compensation, all within its very intuitive menu system. And you can customize the joystick to control a given feature during recording (flash mode, exposure, white balance).

I thought the tiny joystick would be a problem with my big thumb, but it's not a problem once you get used to it.

Digital zoom is fairly useless with a 2 megapixel camera; just blows things up and makes them blurry.

The built-in memory won't hold very much, so you pretty much need an extra memory card... But if you must have it (and I did), go out and get one!

I bought this camera around Christmas time and I have absolutely loved it. I needed a point and shoot digital that I wouldn't have to think about adjusting, and this camera is perfect. It has the little signs of being designed well: really fast start up time, very quick shutter response, it retains settings on shutdown (my first camera chraged the flash all the time and ate batteries like there was no tomorrow), and the list goes on. It has the feel of a well thought-out product, the way something like an ipod does. I highly recommend it!

My husband bought this for me for Mother's Day, and I love it.
I've used it more times than I can remember, probably have a few thousand pics on the computer so far (!)...
I find the samll size to be a practical advantage, and not so much of a "gizmo-wow factor"...unlike our old clunky 35mm, and
the various other point-and-shoot camera's we've had, this one lends itself so well for spontanious, important moments.
Concerning image quality, etc., I can't be very objective, due to the fact my hasband is a graphic artist and runs everything though Photoshop before the world sees them!
I'm sure there are many similar camera's, and they all offer similar performance at at similar price. Bit this little Casio is what I have, and it's great.

I did a lot of agonizing and shopping around before biting the bullet and buying the Kodak DC240. I had used and or owned 3 different digital cameras before this one, and was disappointed overall by their various limitations. Here's what I recommend to anyone buying this wonderful camera.

Get yourself a 16MB Compact Flash card (the camera comes with an 8MB one, but you'll find it's not enough to take a ton of photos without running out of space). That way you'll have 24MB worth of storage to take "on the road" with you, which should be more than enough for the moderate user to store photos on before uploading them to your computer.

Secondly, buy the kit that has the Battery charger and get 4 extra NiMH AA batteries. Do not even bother using regular AA batteries in these. You'll get a lot of use with the NiMH, but standard alkaline will be sucked dry in about 8 minutes.

And finally, invest in a USB Compact Flash card reader. You can find a good one for close to $30, but it will make transferring the pictures off your camera as easy as moving files on your hard drive. SanDisk makes a nice one that's way too easy to use.

The photo quality is magnificent. If you take them at the highest resolution, you'll get a picture that's likely bigger than your monitor can even display, with crip tightness. The colors are incredible, and the variable flash settings for different lighting sources are a great plus.

And even the pictures at the lowest resolution are fairly crisp, and excellent for use for quick web pictures and internet auctions.

There are really only 2 small pet peeves I have with this camera. The LCD screen is very hard to read in sunlight (but ultimatley not necessary to use in a pinch, anyway), and there's about a 1 second delay when you click the picture, so getting that magic moment in a higher speed event takes some practice to take care of.

You can't go wrong with this camera. It's rugged, takes great pictures, and I'm 100% happy with my purchase. And it's KODAK, so you know customer support isn't going to be a problem

I bought the Kodak DC240 partially on a whim. I had read reviews of the Kodak digital cameras and decided to check the price on Amazon -- which was about right. The camera came a few days before I went to a convention in Philadelphia, giving me enough time to learn how to use the camera.

The pictures are wonderful, and my collegues were amazed that I could show them the pictures immediately, or delete them if the shot was bad. I also did a few shots using the timer, which worked pretty well. Following the convention, I was able to put together a quick web site with the pictures, a faster process than waiting for the film to be developed, then scanning the pictures, then cropping, etc.

Overall, a good combination of features, ease of use, and quality pictures.

The main aspect of this camera is it's user friendlieness. It has a basic design, and easy for capture & review. This was my second, and i couldn't stand it. You had to go through file after file to get them onto the computer. With this camera, it iss hard at first, but after you do it once, you can't froget, like riding a bike! Although it isn't the most technological and it doesn't have super excellent quality, it is perfect for the everyday user. I hope you enjoy it like i did!

I'm a photography novice who chose this camera because I wanted: 1. a point and shoot that would make good shutter speed and F-stop decisions for me. 2. a single, high quality lens that telescopes and does wide angle, so I wouldn't have buy or change lenses. 3. excellent picture quality in prints and on screen. 4. an easy to use camera. (I was quickly up to speed on most features after 1 read of the manual and a few experimental pictures.) 5. easy transfer of pictures to the computer.

6. easy to use photo software that comes with the camera.

The product excels in all these qualities except #5. Also, I'm glad the battery's rechargeable, and that the lens cap is attached to the camera.

I'm deducting the 5th star for 2 reasons:

1. I followed all the instructions in the manual for downloading my pictures and it didn't work. I had to call customer service and be walked through an entirely different procedure not in the instructions. Also, they recommended that I save pictures on my desktop so I won't lose them. She told me other people have had the same downloading difficulty, but I don't know how widespread it is, or if it's been corrected.

2. I had to buy a couple extras to be completely satisfied with this camera: (1) Extra battery because the one that comes with the camera only lasts about an hour. (2) 64 Mb memory stick, because the 8 Mb memory that comes with the camera runs out very quickly.

Bottom line: Now that I've troubleshot the downloading problem and bought the extras, I'm very happy with this camera.

A few of the reviewers have highlighted the low-light problem with this camera, and I must add my voice to the chorus of complaint. I've taken some stunning night shots, but dudded out on what I would have thought were easy twilight pics. Go figure. I'm sure there are ways to overcome this problem, but I have yet to mine them out of the manual. (I bought my camera in Japan, and I think I got the hastily translated version of the English instructions!) Backlighting the screen more in low light would, of course, spoil the low light of the environment, wouldn't it?

That said, I 'm really pleased with my purchase. It's several classes above the silly toys which passed as digital cameras until now. Yes, the memory sticks are expensive, but I use mine in other Sony devices (like a dictating machine) which makes the price a bit easier to take. And, yes, you do need to supplement the puny 8 MB stick you get with the camera.

I had no problems with the software, in contrast to some of the other reviewers. In fact, I use it in preference to Microsoft Photo Editor for images I capture elsewhere.

The lens is marvellous. It makes the camera a truly professional instrument--in fact, one of the reasons I chose it was because I noticed an art-director friend of mine had bought one.

I must admit, though, the lens doesn't seem to go as wide as standard cameras. But maybe I'm just using it wrongly.

Highly recommended, especially since prices seem to be coming down worldwide. My friend paid about ... for the Japanese domestic version when it first came out, and I paid about .... I see it advertised here for considerably less...grrrr!

I bought this camera a little over a year ago, when I was doing a summer internship in the Albany area. I had been going out on nature outings with the other interns, and wanted a way to share my experiences with the folks back home. Over the last year I've taken my 505V on hiking trips, trips into caves and even on a diving trip, where I took some pics before getting in the water. Here are my observations from my experiences.

First of all. NEAT camera! It looks like something Captain Kirk would use to snap pictures of the orange-skied planets he used to visit! The controls are laid out well, so that buttons and things are under one's fingers when he holds the camera, and the menu system is simple enough to use. I did not notice any loss of sharpness around the edges of the frame; the Zeiss-designed lens, mounted well away from the heat-producing CCD, probably has something to do with this. The controls permit some simple Real Camera-type manipulations: several shutter speeds, several exposure times, that sort of thing, but there aren't nearly as many tweakable settings, or as much range, as there would be in a film camera. The 505V is designed to be used as a waist-level camera, and shots taken this way should be composed with this in mind. The front of the lens is threaded for standard filters (don't recall the size offhand), obtainable at a photo store. A UV filter to protect the lens and a polarizing filter for outdoor shots of sky and clouds might be a couple of good things to consider.

As did several of the other reviewers, I have had problems getting good pictures in low-light conditions. Perhaps the CCD is not sensitive enough, or the shutter is held open too long for hand-holding, but low-light pics tend to come out blurry. The built-in flash is, of course, too close to the lens, though that's a problem with any camera whose flash is mounted right on the body. Last, the 505V is big. I've had it in some rather surprising places, but it was an effort to take it out of its case and put it back for every picture. I am considering getting a simple, compact digicam as an auxilliary adventure camera for spontaneous shots or narrow cave passages, though I do not anticipate the new camera replacing my 505.

I have bought a PCMCIA card for plugging the Memory Stick into my laptop (heh! I can mount it as a Linux filesystem and not have to touch any Windows software at all!), an extra battery, and of course, a bigger Memory Stick than the 8M one that came with the camera. I have also purchased a small Pelican case from the dive shop, so that I can get my pack wet or drop it onto hard places (or fall and land on it, as has also happened a few times), and not worry about damaging my camera. The Pelican case also fits an extra battery and as many Memory Sticks as I care to take along, and is thus a Good Thing.

I recently bought this camera and loved it. I read a lot of reviews and found this the best buy. I tried the fd-73 and liked that but I liked having the option for manual focus which is great when you use the macro mode. you don't even need to read the book to get started just get yourself a disk and charge the battery and away you go. I like use the standard floppy no cords to hook up or smart cards to deal with. Yes i do agree that you don't get a ton of pictures on a disk but this shouldn't be considered our 1 and only camera this should be used for special stuff. If you want to take a million photo's buy yourself a 35mm not a digital camera.

This is a great camera. I was using it right out of the box, after charging the battery for an hour. The controls are very easy to use and understand. The camera comes with a rechargable battery and charger, no more batteries to buy great move sony. The camera displays the status of the battery, disk space and number of pictures on the disk. Oh did I mention that the camera uses regular 3 1/2 floppy disk. You can view the pictures right on the camera one at a time or view them in the index mode, where you view the pictures six at a time. You can also connect the camera to your tv or vcr and let the camera do it's thing, by creating a slide show. You can also review the pictures and delete any one that you don't want. And another great feature is it creates a html document on the disk with links to each picture that's on the disk, what a great idea. I have a son six and a daughter eight and they started using the camera without any instructions now that's easy. The pictures are great the detail in the pictures are out of sight.

We bought this camera a couple of years ago and we are very pleased with it.

It has a long zoom and can get clear, focused pictures of things yards away.
It can take a minute of digital video with great picture quality.
You do not need to worry about memory sticks or any special slots in your computer. You simply pop in a floppy disc, take tons of pictures and pop the disc in your computer. Instantly, you have great picture.
Small and lightweight.
Has great effects such as sepia, B&W, Negitive, and solorize. You can do all kinds of effects with your sixty seconds of movie.
There is a flash and a giant backlit screen.
You can do slideshows.
Works seamlessly with any picture, movie making and writing program.

I reccomend buying the Mavica camera. It was the original and first digital camera ever made.

I ordered this on a grudge Monday PM (1st online buy), after a hideous visit to a local retailer who apparently didn't need my business...I was taking photos with it 3 days later. This camera is great, feels high quality, and is very easy to get used to. Only gripe: just noticed the price went down $10 today! (but the free shipping helps there; promised 5-9 days, actually here in 3). I was crazy to wait this long to do this: both the camera and Amazon impressed me (and no, I'm not a stockholder in either!)

I have a Sony Digital Camera that I love but my husband, who is sort of camera illiterate, wanted to use it often so I bought him an easy one of his own -- Kodak Easy Share CX 7300. While I had to set up the computer portion of it for him, he was taking pictures within a few minutes. The software is wonderful and easy to use as well. Everything is explained on the computer monitor. No need to read through the manual. I do not have a dock but the cable is very easy to use. We just love the camera!!!

Ok, this camera does not have an optical zoom, but for general point and shoot pictures this may actually be an advantage.
All you have to do with this camera is turn it on and it's ready to go.

The controls for this camera are very easy to use, and it has several advanced features, like auto white balance and night shot mode.

Best of all, this camera takes outstanding pictures. It rivals any small 35MM for picture quality, and the Kodak software works really well for both filing and printing.

I bought this camera as a kind of second camera for Spring break, but wound up using it more than my "main" camera because it is so easy to use.

The technical detail:

a. The printer may be operated as a standalone product independant of a computer. It contains slots for both SmartMedia cards and compact flash PC card adaptors so you don't have to have a computer connected to the printer to use it. The printer has its own small LCD display which can be used in lieu of a computer interface to help you select pictures off your cards for printing and the printer also has a rather sophisticated built in capability to format the final product.

b. The printer has both a parallel port and a USB port for computer connection and is compatible with both PCs and MACs. Configuration software is included on CD for both types of machines. No computer cables are included and will cost you about $20 at your local computer store.

c. If connected to a computer, the printer is used to provide printed output for whatever photo editing software you already own. No computer photo editing software is included with the package.

d. Documentation is complete and voluminous. However, the technical document giving all the nitty gritty is provided as a computer PDF file readable by Adobe Acrobat software (supplied in multiple languages) and is not provided hardcopy. If you are buying this printer to use as a standalone device without a computer, this puts you at somewhat of a disadvantage.

e. The starter kit of paper and printer ribbon is adequate to print only five (5) 8x10" prints so you will want to purchase paper and ribbon with the printer.

f. Printing supplies (paper and ribbon) are expensive, costing almost $2 per 8x10" print.

The Subjective data:

The final print produced is 314x314 dots per inch and looks incredible. I have standard 8x10" Kodak prints produced from my digital photos that do not look nearly as good. Unless you are going to take your digital data to a custom printing specialist and stand over his shoulder, you will not be able to obtain a print better than this printer will give you. Recently, I was trying to restore an old 8x10" photo and scanned it into my computer at the highest resolution possible, edited it in Adobe Photoshop, and wound up with a wonderful restoration. By that time the digital image was up to 58MB size. I asked Kodak to print it, and they did. However, their system couldn't handle the large file size and compressed it to slightly over 2MB. Their final print was acceptable but a lot of the detail and my work was lost because of the compression. My computer fed the entire 58MB file to this printer and it produced a superb picture that made the Kodak image look like a childs effort in comparison. I don't know of any printer today that has comperable capability to the Olympus P400.

I have owned this printer for nearly two years. It has been trouble-free and has given me hundreds of beautiful pictures that have the look and feel of high-quality photo prints. I use Photoshop Elements to clean-up my images and to size them for printing. Photoshop elements allows me to place multiple images on a full sheet of paper. I recently showed some travel photos to a friend. He said, "I've seen digital pictures before but never any that looked this beautiful! What kind of a camera do you have?" I told him that it wasn't the camera, it was the printer. The printer, itself, is not hard to set up and use. At first , you must pay attention to how you load the ribbon, but if you look carefully at the instructions, you will be fine. A negative review mentions the micro lesions on the surface of the prints. It is true that there are a few extremely fine scratches on the plastic surface of each page . However, you will never notice them unless you take them to a window and tilt the picture around to catch the light just so. In normal viewing, you will never know they are there. And they are only on the clear, plastic coating that covers the pigments on the paper. (The paper makes four passes over the thermal head. Three passes put the color on, the fourth applies a protective coating of clear plastic.) The drawback to this printer is that it will not print larger than 8X10, and not quite a true 8X10 at that. Personally, that has never bothered me. I don't do a lot of 8X10's, and when I do, I put a border around the print, put it in a frame and it's fine. The quality of the pictures continually amazes everyone I show them to. I think this is a great photo printer.

Finally, a dye sublimation photo printer that gives you prints larger than 4" x 6"! The colors are rich, and the pictures are very sharp. There is nothing on the market today that is in this printer's class. If anyone is interested in quality prints of digital images, this printer is an absolute must have. I would recommend printing images that were taken with at least a 2 megapixel digital camera. I have an HP Photosmart P1000 printer that does very well, but it cannot compete with the P400. You can't achieve the same quality print with an ink jet printer.

i'm in the process of trying to return this camera. This has got to be the worst digi camera available. I haven't been able to get one clear picture indoors or outdoors. There is a delay from when you take the picture until it's actually taken so you'll miss everything. Horrible quality. I can't the get software to work on my mac. All around terrible. Even Fuji can't figure out what the problem is with this horrid camera. Save your money and stay away from this crap.

My husband bought me this camera for Christmas 2003 after I could no longer live with my old Olympus D520 digital camera. Over the years I've settled on features in digital cameras that work for my needs, and this one meets them all. The breakdown:

Pros:
* Sturdy. Early after getting this camera, my cat had a run-in with it where the strap got hooked around his neck, something spooked him and he took off, camera crashing around behind him. I'm pleased to say that both cat and camera lived, and neither were damaged in any way. Hat's off to Fujifilm for making an indestructable digicam!
* Picture quality is excellent. I need a camera with a hefty optical zoom and this one has it. Recently I was able to capture a photo of my friend recieving her diploma... From high up in the bleachers and over 500 feet away from her! The picture is crystal clear, too!
* Good with all lighting conditions. Daylight, low-light, indoor, outdoor, this camera performs well under all conditions.
* Fast recovery period between snap shots. There is between a 2-3 second recovery period between pictures, which is nice. It insures that you're able to get a series of photos fired off in a quick succession, which is great if you're taking pictures of people in action.
* Easy to transfer photos from the camera to my computer. I use a Mac, and this camera works flawlessly with it. The software is basic... I don't use it for major picture editing (that's what Photoshop is for), but the software package will crop and resize, orient, etc.
* Print quality is excellent. I can upload my photos via the net to my photo processing store and they print them out using a high-quality printer on photo paper for 11 cents a print. The prints from this camera are crystal clear and look indistinguishable from ones taken with a film camera.

Cons:
* Size. I thought at first that I wouldn't mind the size of the S3000, but after having had it for several months, I'm starting to bring my crappy Olympus with me places where I don't have the space to haul around a clunky camera. Even though it's a fabulous point-and-shoot camera that comes through time and time again, it's quite a bit bigger than most point-and-shoot digicams which can make it a little awkward to lug around.
* Battery life stinks. The one good thing I can say about my Olympus D520 is that it has great battery life, and this is one area where the S3000 just doesn't impress me. It takes 4 AA batteries and sucks them dry in no time, despite supposedly being more efficient than the previous version.

All in all, I'd have to say that the pros far outweigh the cons with this camera. If you're looking for a sturdy digicam with tons of optical zoom and great print resolution, you can't go wrong with the A3000!

I wouldn't pay so much attention to the first person's review seeing as how that person is rating a digital camera's score based on its video functions.

So, most of you who are shopping for this camera probably are purchasing it as a first time camera (like I did) or possibly a gift for someone else. I've been overly impressed with this camera. It has a very nice macro lens (and mode) that's user friendly. I can easily focus on subjects only 2.5" from my lens. It's great for artistic purposes or if you just need to get the camera close to the subject matter.

I chose this camera over others because it offered a 6x optical zoom which is easily out of the effective range of the flash. This digital camera (like almost all) depends on the flash to maintain focus for the majority of its images. For in-focus distance images (not scenery shots), say like a graduation, you'll need a tripod to obtain images with excellent clarity. Since the flash will be out of range, you'll have to turn it off, but the camera needs to be incredibly still in order to obtain perfect images.

With that said, the camera can do action shots. I'm not too sure why the other person couldn't obtain shots without them being blurred, but I was able to capture images of my friends practicing kickboxing with no motion blur (which even surprised me). Those images were obtained using the flash. Not only that, but I've taken pictures while driving in my car and I captured an image of a van I was driving by and scenery on the side. Doing 70mph pass the trees on the side of the road and getting almost no motion blur, I have trouble seeing as how the reviewer couldn't get pictures of his children running around.

Clarity on images is excellent and grain is almost nonexistent. The camera offers many modes including sports, continuous (two consecutive shots only), night (good night time color, but needs a tripod for sure), landscape (beautiful pictures), portait, and a few others.

This is definitely a good starter camera, and like all cameras to effectively utilize all of the options available, you have to just learn how to use the camera for whatever situation needed. My biggest complaint would have to go to the slow focusing/charging modes. It makes it hard to capture moments when you're having to focus the subject first. However, most cameras I've played with in this price range do not offer much faster, if at all, focus speeds. It's the only camera I've seen with a 6x optical zoom (which is what you want, no digital zoom) under $300, and it also has an adapter ring if you'd ever like to upgrade your range.

As far as the software, it's not anything spectacular but it worked for me. Also, it's easy to use for those not too familiar with computers (slideshows, cd burning, etc.). I'm running on Windows 98, and my computer recognized the camera as a massive storage device as well; however, if you follow the installation process correctly, the software should correct that problem (the manual advises not to connect the camera prior to installing the software).