Digital camcorder vs. camera?

[sevenreeses]

I need to replace my camera before my trip, and have spent the day looking at various options. I'm intriqued by the new digital camcorders that fit in your pocket, and claim to have a still picture option that lets you take regular digital photographs. Has anyone used one of these? If so, do you know what the quality of the stills is like, can you turn them into suitable photographs for scrapbooking? I would love to have one small camera that lets me take both video and photos. But they're pretty pricey for an experiment!

 

[eeyorefanatic]

My BF who is a regular on a tech message board just had this dilema ourselves. The answer was resoundingly unanimous. DO NOT buy a digital cam corder for still pictures. Certainly not good enough for printing them for scrapbooks.

I just bought a digital camera from Kodak for use on my trip on Thursday (I too plan on scrapbooking). As I am not wealthy by any means we had a very limited budget. We wound up with a Kodak DX3600 that I am very happy with so far (I have not tested it at WDW as I don't leave till Thursday.) I spent $248 for it and you can find really cheap memory cards at www.newegg.com

Please feel free to pm me if you have any questions.

 

[DISNEYWORLDBORN2SHOP]

I have a Cannon Elph that uses APS film. I bought this for my trips to Disney as it is very small and fits in my pocket and has a decent zoom lens. I hesitate to buy a digital camera as most of the people I know that have them never get around to printing out their photos.

 

[abbyndrewmom]

I love my digital camera and a a BIG scrapbooker. you can do so much to your pictures right on the screen. plus I like the ability to burn them on to a CD and not have to worry about negatives. I got my digital camera last August and used it for our trip WDW in September. it was great to come back to the hotel each night and go through the pictures and erase the ones that were not great. The other real advantage was at the character meals I could check the pics right away and take another if we had a bad picture. I had two 64 memory cards which gave me 110 pictures on the highest setting. We also had a regular camera which we used at the water parks and Dh had at the character meals. it was nice to have the two cameras as we both captured different poses with the characters. We are making our next trip in June and I am hoping to buy another card before then.

One important thing about the digital camera is your printer I have the Epson Photo 780 which uses archieval quality ink. It was recommend by Creative Keepsakes (SB magazine) as having the best photo quality. I am very happy with it.

 

[robinb]

I've had a digital camera for almost 3 years and I love it! I also have a digital camcorder and the still photos are not very good.

I have an HP "photo-quality" printer, but almost never use it to print pictures. The ink and the paper are just not the same as having it printed like a real photo. My local grocery store will take a CD with JPGs or TIFs and do prints for the cost of their regular reprints ... I think it's 12 cents per picture. If you don't have someplace near you, Wolf Photo online will also print from JPG or TIF files which you can email to them.

 

[sevenreeses]

Thanks - you posted the answer to my question before I got done typing it!

 

[QuickGold]

I had that dilmena on my last trip and got a Sony TRV608 Hi8 camcorder for around $350(my friends works at Circuit City). Here's what it comes down to. Digital cams are best if you just like stills and looking back. Camcorders are great if you want to relive your memories, however, it depends on someone who is good with a camcorder and will be recording alot. I recorded alot of my trip, but felt I missed alot too.