Camera for Year Abroad in Greenland

[hippykrit]

At the end of July I will be leaving for a academic year abroad in Greenland. I hope to travel much and take many pictures. I have been shopping for and researching digital cameras for the past year. I have yet to come to much of any conclusion.

My only real criteria so far is:
Less than $600 street price
compact size
high resolution for nice prints
the option of adding lenes would be nice, but i'm not willing to sacrifice much for it.
manual focus and hight optical zoom are also considerations

The powershot s500 is looking nice for most of the criteria, but has no manual controls. Also the A80 and 550 have looked nice.

Any suggestions would be grately appreciated, as I need to order within a few weeks.
Thanks,
Jaxon

[CyberDyneSystems]

I'd look seriously at the Pro1 IS.

It has a nice 10X image stabilised zoom lens... if yu have any interest at all in getting pics of the wildlife.. this camera may be the best solution nd compromise for size (it really is amazingly tiny!)

[hippykrit]

The Pro1 looks like a wonderful camera, which I am sure would meet and exceed all of my needs and be a joy to use. However it is sadly out of my price range. If someone out there would like to donate a few hundred dollars to a young aspiring artist/photographer who is spending a year and all of his financial resources in Greenland as a youth ambassador, it would be very welcome, and as easy as a paypal payment to nowar4dubya@hotmail.com.
Thanks for the reply,
more are welcome,
Jaxon

[Andy_T]

Hippy,

I'd look at a used G3, if I were you ...

It's a great camera with most likely everything you need (apart from IS), and there are certainly are guys upgrading to the Pro1 or DRebel ... making it possible to get them for a good price.

With the money leftover, you can get CF cards, a tripod and so on...

Best regards,
Andy

[hippykrit]

The G3 looks like a good choice. I had looked at the G5 before but was thrown off somewhat by the complaints of purple tingeing which I have a feeling could show up a fair amount in pictures of glaciers, snow and other white backgrounds. Do you see any reason aside from price to get the G3 over the G5. It seems that the extra resolution would be nice for prints. The idea of using the leftover money for accessories is a good one, but somewhat hard to grasp, as it is tempting to spend as much or slightly more on the best camera I can afford.
Thanks,
More comments welcome,
Jaxon

[Andy_T]

Jaxon,

digital (consumer) cameras are high tech products with prices that have been coming down as technology advances.

For that reason, if you buy the newest and best, you'll lose some money as the camera is half a year or a year old. The camera doesn't get any worse.

Now with a G3, somebody else has lost that money. Actually, he had a lot of fun with the camera and may now be moving on to something even better (like a Pro1 or DRebel or 10D...)

But as you state that money is an issue for you, I would advise you to make a 'smart choice' ... which would be to go for the second-newest, but not entirely second-best choice :lol:.

The G3 has everything the G5 has, apart from that extra megapixel. So how much more expensive is it for just 20% more resolution? You do the math.

Purple fringing and noise are other issues. I'm not sure whether the G5 is really a lot worse than the G3 here, but they are issues to take into consideration.

I got my G2 about one and a half years ago for about 850$ (including a 1 gig microdrive). I don't regret that at all. The list price for the combination was something like 1,200$ at that time, and I found a good offer.

Now, I'm just buying a Kodak DX6440 for my wife for about 250 $ that basically has the same features as the G3 with just some details missing that are not that important for my wife. (My neighbor convinced me, he's a Kodak sales rep :lol:). Not a bad camera, either.

Do I think I paid too much for my camera? Definitely not. I certainly got my worth out of the camera so far (let's think ... 'bout 13,000 photos so far, some of them even good :lol:). I've made up my mind to wait until next year before upgrading to a DSLR and will continue to use the G2 even after that point.

Best regards,
Andy

[hippykrit]

The G3 seems like a good choice. However it is still tempting to get that extra megapixel. As I said previously I have about $600. When looking around the marketplace forum someone has a G5 with accesories up, for $620.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=32588
It does not have much included memory though.
Does anyone have a G5 or G3 they are trying to get rid of?
Thanks again,
Jaxon