Compact digital camera recommendations

December 10, 2003 12:00 PM

My wife's B-day is coming up on the 15th.
She wants a nice digital camera.
Since I am always stuck on the fact I have to purchase her a nice B-day gift, followed immediately by purchasing her an even nicer Christmas gift, I am asking your advice about digital cameras that won't be more than the $500 range.

She wants a good quality one. But she also wants a smaller one that fits into her purse. I am going to go check out some buyer guides, but I thought I might ask people's advice on a good one to make her happy.
posted by Seth to Shopping (8 answers total)

There are a couple existing threads about what digital camera to buy, check out the current archives link on the bottom of the main ask metafilter page.
posted by mathowie at 12:05 PM on December 10, 2003

Response by poster: Eek.

Thanks for pointing it out.

I didn't realize there were archives already or a search function.

Guess it will take a bit to work the kinks out, but the idea is great.
posted by Seth at 12:34 PM on December 10, 2003

I officiate at weddings, and the digicam that ladies like to pull out of their slim bags is the ultra thin Casio Exilim. There is a 3MP model that comes in various colors and takes nice pictures.
posted by planetkyoto at 4:30 PM on December 10, 2003

Yep. Agreed. The ladies in Tokyo love the Exilim.
posted by gen at 5:50 PM on December 10, 2003

My GF has the Digital Elph (2 megapix version, but she'd probably get the 3 mp version today). It is very small, has a pretty good UI, and takes fantastic indoor smilng-girls-at-the-bar pictures, which is about 50% of her photographs (ok, some of those include men as well). Hers always come out great, and my Nikon Coolpix 2500 pics come out blurry.

Just an anecdote, but hopefully useful.
posted by zpousman at 8:29 PM on December 10, 2003

i'd go with a used canon digital elf off ebay. If you want reviews this is the best site i've seen
posted by NGnerd at 9:20 PM on December 10, 2003

Three cameras in (one theft replacement, one upgrade) I don't think you can go wrong with Sony, so long as you stick with a model that has a rechargeable battery. There are some nice, small ones. But personally, I just started carrying a slightly larger purse.
posted by Dreama at 1:38 AM on December 11, 2003

Ditto NGnerd's recco of dpreview; Ditto reccos of the digital elph, which is very nice all around. It's got a good lens that produces sharper pictures than some other micro-cameras that capture more pixels.
posted by adamrice at 7:37 AM on December 11, 2003