My Obsessive Camera Research (I need a 12 step program)

No, I don't have it yet, but Allison asked about our research and I thought I'd just post it, since the comment would have been longer than the original post!

First, let me explain. I over-analyze EVERY big purchase. Should have seen us trying to buy a new TV earlier this summer. Took MONTHS. I work too hard for my money to spend it without research. And sometimes I go overboard. Allison, this is more information than you EVER wanted about why I bought this particular camera.

Because of some specific features we wanted, we ended up buying a Canon Powershot SD850 Elph. It's one of the smaller ones, but not THE smallest. Cost about $325 with shipping from tigerdirect.com. They also had a VERY similar SD800 that was a little less expensive, and half a dozen other similar models with slight variation in features. There was very little difference between the 800 and 850, other than a small amount of zoom, a fraction of a megapixel, and some stuff with movie mode, which I don't care much about. I would have been perfectly ok with the 800 but with the small price difference at TigerDirect we just went ahead and got the 850.

As to WHY we went with that, well, for starters we wanted something small. We like to GO and we wanted something that wouldn't be bulky to lug around, especially when we go to Disney in the Spring. When I bought my dad a digital camera for Christmas a couple of years ago I went with a bigger model because his hands won't grip a compact (he almost cut a finger completely off in a bulldozer accident when I was younger and doesn't have full us of it now). The bigger ones can also be a little easier to steady and sometimes more user friendly because they have more room for buttons, screen, and an optical viewfinder (although several of the small Canons do have the viewfinder), but for us that wasn't as important as portability.

The other thing we looked at was features. Not so much on the megapixels, though. Despite what camera makers want you to believe, unless you're blowing up to poster size, anything over 5 megapixels won't make THAT much difference. I think this one is 8, the other model was like 7.1. Really, not much difference in quality if you're using the high settings. We did want a decent zoom, but you can't find a really good one on a compact. The 850 has a 4X, the 800 had a 3.8X which was actually slightly wider than the 4X. Again, the bigger cameras have bigger zooms, but we're ok with the 4X. A less important issue, but something that was in the back of my mind, was the type of media it uses. The Sony's use their style memory sticks only. The Canon uses the regular SD cards, of which we have an abundance already and can be a little cheaper than the Sony sticks. (We have a couple of Sony sticks too, for the PSP.) One thing I was hesitant about, but will probably really like once I actually use it, is that it doesn't use regular batteries, it uses a special battery that cost about $50-60 bucks to buy separately, but is rechargeable and should last a whole lot longer than regular AA's. It comes with one, but we'll end up getting a backup.

Greg liked the Canon for two reasons, it has a glass lense rather than plastic (tends to be better quality pics) and it has a bunch of preset modes, like for fireworks, portrait, foliage, even an aquarium mode. Don't get me wrong, for fireworks mode you better have a tripod because it's going to leave the shutter open a while, but we're going to play with them and see what works.

The other major factor in buying the Canon was that just about every website I went to, including Consumer Reports (yes, we have a subscription!) ranked multiple Canon models at the top of every type of camera list for quality of equipment and pictures. Other top models were Fuji Finepix's and some of the Sony's. Some of the other websites I used (in case you want to look at other types of cameras) included:

www.steves-digicams.com - More information than you could possibly want on a lot of cameras, includes specs and sample pics in different conditions, as well as pics of the actual camera that help you judge size and button-layout.

reviews.cnet.com - Gives a one-to-ten rating and breaks down the features, also gives some customer reviews.

There were a few other sites, but those two plus Consumer Reports were the most user friendly for me. I also went to places like amazon.com and other retail sites that let customers review products and read a ton of user reviews. I know that different people have different expectations and that often drives the reviews, but I also know that if I see a consistent complaint then it's probably something worth a closer look! I also hit Best Buy, Satan's Electronic Emporium (Circuit City, we don't like them), Sam's, Walmart, and Target to test drive the floor models after I narrowed it down. Frankly, if you can't hold it comfortably and use the controls, it doesn't matter how good the pics are because you won't be able to use it!

Geezum petes. I need help.