Cheapest Digital Camera with Manual settings?

[Iain]

Thanks to all those who provided useful responses, seems like what I am after does not exist in the price range yet - I'll have to keep a look out on the second hand market for some of the models mentioned as well as their older cousins.

For the moment I'll have to stick to film. I have only just looked into the cost of printing digital files and was surprised to find out how expensive it is. It is cheaper to use buy and process neg film, and since I have a few mini labs close by, it would only take me about an hour to get the prints, which is about the same as downloading and printing digital shots would take anyway. Most minilabs can be convinced not to "correct" the photos if you talk to them first.

Neg film with printing is cheap here - way cheaper than digital prints, including film,it works out at $14AUD for 36 prints - 36 digital prints cost $18AUD for the same size and I think the neg film print will be of much higher quality than the digital ones with a cheap camera.

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Iain

Brisbane, Australia ( that's that little island on the other side of the world where all the good actors come from [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img])

[Andy_Pearlman]

I would check in some camera stores or online or such for used cameras that are a few years old, but have those features. For example, I had a Canon Powershot G1 that I used for many years for casting, candids, copy work and even a catalog shoot. It saved me a ton of money in Polroids and mini-lab charges, not to mention storing all that stuff (I used to shoot a roll of color neg on every model that came in to meet me, for my files). It will shoot in RAW or 3 JPG sizes, has full manual controls, a hot shoe and uses standard Compact Flash cards. My favorite feature is the swing-out/tilting LCD screen, that let's you hold the camera over your head or on the floor, and is great for copy work. I never shoot with the viewfinder, only the LCD screen. And I don't use their file transfer software, I just copy the files off the card.

Canon has developed the line up through a G6 or G7 by now, and I think if you look around you should be able to find one of the older models sitting around. (Mine finally died, and Canon took it as a trade-in and upgraded me to a refurbished G5). Nikon had some simlarly featured point & shoots, as did Olympus, and the some of the other brands. You might try contacting them and see if they see refurbished units outright, without a trade-in. I think its a worthwhile investment aside from your stated purpose, because it will also give you experience about dealing with digital images which is important if you're a working pro. Note that from an image quality standpoint, these cameras usually do not have the color depth or lens flexibility of a entry level DSLR (like my Nikon D70), but they're good enough for all the stuff I did, and you want to experiment with.

Regards,
Andy Pearlman
Andy Pearlman Studio