Suggestions for a easy but high quality camera for an olde..

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.point+shoot (More info?)

My father has been doing photography since the 40's, but he's getting
older and not quite as good with camera equipment as he used to be.

He wants to try using a digital camera, so I want to find one that's:
* relatively high quality
* pretty small.
* has a fast turn on & recycle time
* has a fast response when the button is pressed
* has a large screen
* has a good wide angle end of the zoom (very important IMHO)
* and most of all, is easy to use

Hmmm, although I said small, I'm now thinking larger would actually be
easier to handle, as long as it's not significantly heavier.

I loaned him my Nikon 5700, but the "change the flash" button is right
next to the "change the resolution" button and his trembly fingers kept
hitting the wrong button (giving him a long recycle time because the
camera kept saving huge .tiff files). So the Nikon 5700 is out (and
it's descendants too).

I'm looking at the Nikon Coolpix 8400. Any comments? Good wide angle
and it has the guaranteed automatic green setting on it's dial, but
looking at the specs online, I don't see any numbers about button press
reaction time and/or shot to shot recycle time.

Any other camera suggestions?

Ben in DC
PublicMailbox at benslade dot.com
(append 030516 to the subj to bypass spam filters)
"It's the mark of an educated mind to be moved by statistics"
Oscar Wilde

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.point+shoot,rec.photo.digital.zlr (More info?)

Benjamin Slade wrote:
[]
> I loaned him my Nikon 5700, but the "change the flash" button is right
> next to the "change the resolution" button and his trembly fingers
> kept hitting the wrong button (giving him a long recycle time because
> the camera kept saving huge .tiff files). So the Nikon 5700 is out
> (and it's descendants too).
>
> I'm looking at the Nikon Coolpix 8400. Any comments? Good wide angle
> and it has the guaranteed automatic green setting on it's dial, but
> looking at the specs online, I don't see any numbers about button
> press reaction time and/or shot to shot recycle time.

If he wants the longer zoom of the 5700 but without the button problems,
you might want to look at the Panasoniz FZ5 which has image stabilisation
(might help with more trembly hands), and is quite a bit smaller than the
5700. It has a "green" setting on its dial too (actually a little heart
symbol)! Nikon also offer the 8800 where the controls have been moved.

The 8400 is one of the fastest P&S cameras I've used - it has an extra
focus sensor which makes it noticeably faster in operation.

By the way, this conversation is more suited to the ZLR group which deals
with full-control SLR-like cameras. I've set follow-ups to:
rec.photo.digital.zlr

Cheers,
David