Sijun Forums :: View topic - kodak can burn in hell (tell us your digital camera woes)

flaagan · Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2002 11:03 pm

i've had a Kodak DC265 digital cameral for nearly three years now...
the thing's slow, bulky, and sucks up batteries like no tomorrow.. but it takes good pictures....
after some use the other day i set it on the corner of my desk like i have so many other times...
i took a trip to the Palace of the Legion of Honor in san francisco a day or so ago, and wanted to take some photos of the area while i was there, so i booted the camera up to make sure i had a clean memory card... and i get an error message saying the card's not there, then the camera, for lack of better terms, locks up...
long story short, i currently dont know if i have a working camera or a ~$300 plastic block...
figures the weather clears up when this happens...
------
update... bought a new memory card... 48 mb compact flash, which is about 4x more than the original card... works now... i'm happy... sorta

[ March 22, 2002: Message edited by: flaagan ]

Lunatique · Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2002 3:25 am

Could be your card, not the camera. Try a different card. Happens to me too.

Gimbal8 · Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2002 6:37 am

I have an Olympus 2100 Ultra Zoom. On very rare occasions the camera will lock up and the only way to get it working again is to take the batteries out and put them back in. Turning it on and off doesn't help. I only had it happen twice in over a year that I've had the camera, and I use the camera anywhere from 2 to 3 times a week taking an average of 200 pics each week. Both times it happened was when it was reading from the card and I was pressing buttons or changing modes or some other impatient act.

balistic · Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2002 9:13 am

No complaints about my Coolpix 995 so far. Image saving is a bit slow, but that can probably be attributed to the cheap Taiwanese memory card I'm using.

strata · Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2002 9:51 am

Anyone know anything about the Minolta DiMAGE s440? I'm getting one soon... tell me now if I shouldn't. =)

[Shizo] · member Member # Joined: 22 Oct 1999 Posts: 3938

I have Canon S-30 it is sweet :)
It's like G2 reduced in size. It's not the best, but there isnt a camera out there that is. Look for the features you need most (like camera size, memory (CompactFlash foreava!), zoom, resolution, PRICE)

Best places to research www.dpreview.com (check out CF speed tests) www.stevesdigicams.com

balistic · Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2002 1:14 pm

Most of the cheapest prices are going to be from stores in New York, unfortunatley most of those places are scams. They won't ship your order unless you agree to buy a bunch of overpriced accessories.

I got my CP995 from http://www.amdv.com . . . make sure you check out any potential sellers on http://www.resellerratings.com before you buy . . . usually anyplace rated higher than 5 is pretty safe.

Gimbal8 · Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2002 1:29 pm

Try using cnet shopper, mysimon, pricegrabber, pricewatch or whatever other price search engine type thing that is out there. Just remember that the best deal might not always be the best deal. The peace of mind for paying a little more and getting something from a reputable source is worth it. Always check out the company's return policy and see how other customers rate the site as well, as Balistic mentioned.

Gimbal8 · Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2002 1:40 pm

BTW, what kind of battery life is everyone getting with their digicam? I'm especially curious about the larger megapixel cameras.

My Uzi (That's what us dorks on the Olympus 2100 UZ yahoo group like to call our camera) takes four 1600 NiMH rechargables (AA's) and I can fill an entire 128meg card with 1600x1200 HQ JPEG images before it needs to be reloaded. That of course is with minimal use of the full LCD screen.

I'm reluctant to try the 1800 NiMHs but I hear there is a small increase in battery life. But to me it isn't enough to justify spending more.

balistic · Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2002 4:57 pm

With the stock, propietary battery that comes with the 995 I get about 2.5 hours use, with constant LCD activity. You can get corded battery packs that will extend that to six hours, but I'd rather just get a second battery and do the swap thing halfway through.

[Shizo] · member Member # Joined: 22 Oct 1999 Posts: 3938

You can check battery life on dcpreview.com
S-30 is good for 128Mb card, but extra battery es recommended. On G2 one battery lasts about x1.6 as long as S-30

Shadow-X- · Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2002 12:00 am

I am just doing some research on the Olympus D-460Z, it is now out of production, and I've been reading up on Olympus' mesage boards, and some people are having the same problem as you have described above. I am not sure if it will work for every camera, but a solution that someone had posted was that they took out the battery, and left it over night. Once he stuck the batteries back in next day, it worked like a charm.

I myself, am borrowing my friend's Kodak DC3400. It's huge, it's bulky, but it gets the job done. Pictures are decent, but as like any other digicam, battery consumption is a bitch. I use a AC adaptor from my sony walkman, which provides it w/ 6V, even though it really needs 7V. I figure it wont damage the camera if it is underpowered. I've had it stall on me once, it indicated that it had 00 pictures left, when it had many left, and it stalled. I panicked since I am borrowing this camera from a friend, I took out the AC adaptor, and stuck in some batteries and it fixed it.

I want a digicam now! Anyone know any websites where I can get discount priced digicams?!?

Impaler · Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2002 3:09 pm

Heh. My digital "camera" is one of those super-cheap 'pencams' that you see on TV. No LCD, and a very useless viewfinder. All of my shots are shot from the hip, proverbially speaking. It has no focus, and it has a bizarre depth of field, where anything that's closer than ~3.5 feet is out of focus, and anything further than that is blurred to hell. I get like, 20 hours of battery life, unless I happen to leave the two necessary AAA's in. The camera drains the batteries for no apparent reason then.

I own you.

Gimbal8 · Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2002 3:19 pm

Wow, someone actually bought that? Cool.

Now I have to know...who has the 'Amazing X-Cam" thingy???

Pat · Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2002 4:03 pm

2.5 hours? Damn, my Canon Powershot A50 will chew through a rechargeable battery in about 24 pics with full LCD. I might get between 40 to 60 if the LCD is off and flash use is moderate. I can't even fill up a 64 meg CF card on 2 batteries. Maybe my batteries are getting old.

-Pat

Guy · Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2002 1:31 am

i wish i could afford a digital camera. what is a good affordable digital camera anyway? i'd love to get my hands on the Nikon D1X, but that things is extremely expencive. $8000(cnd)

Rat · Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2002 10:36 am

We have a Canon Powershot G2. The only time I've been allowed to use it for more than ten minutes (dad's a bit overprotective of it), it's battery survived an entire hour and a half of soccer practice shots (and short movies), then another ten or twenty minutes of the same as mom slowly walked to the car (meeting everyone she knows on the way).