Digital Cameras? - Need help!

[czen]

ello lads and lasses

I've decided (or finally put together the money) to buy a digital camera. I'm not to updated in the digital camera world, so any help from you guys with a little knowledge on this would be much appreciated!

I'm looking to spend around 6000NOK on it (about 860 USD), and I'm looking for some minor criteria;

4 megapixels,
3-4x zoom, (optical?)
An ok macro-ability.. with low distances.. lets say 10 cm minimum.
And the picture quality should ofcourse be impressing in all/most functions.. (proly wont get all:P)
++

I've been looking through reviews and offers from numerous brands, and I've picked out one that I'd like - but I wanted to check with you lot first.. It's the Canon Powershot G3

Help on this would be much appreciated - and please don't just reply with "NIKON OWNZ! NUFF SAID!" cuz that won't teach me anything about digicams :-P

[Rainer]

http://www.dpreview.com/
This is the first place to go. You'll find good and objective crits.
Personally I think that your choise of the G3 is pretty good. It has all your desired options and even in Europe you can find it for a decent price
Isn't it weird, those americans get more money then us and the prices are lower for them

[Denny]

The Powershot G3 is an excellent choice. Canon cameras have a really high quality image and is less grainy than most other cameras using similar sensors. The G3 has SLR sized lens and it greatly improves the quality. I've compared a G2 to a S40 and the G2 was even less grainy than the S40 because of it's lens size.

[kiwicolin]

Make sure that the new camera supports camera raw.

[kristoficus]

what exactly is camera raw??? i know its to do with adobe or furthermore, Photoshop...

[Woody916]

If you look around on either dpreview or fredmiranda.com you can probally find a good deal on a Canon D30 or D60. Both are "prosumer" cameras and will offer everything you need. The only problem is that the price will usually only include the body (no lenses)

Depending how serious you are about photography those are great choices for the money.

The D60 is a 6.3 megapxiel camera that records raw and JPG simoultaniously. You can auto adjust the white balance, you can adjust the exposure +/- 2 stops in 1/2 or 1/3 increments, it has three autofocus points and also has a focus lock so you can lock on a particular point then follow your target into the focused frame to get some great action shots, and supports ISO 100-1000

The D60 has been replaced by the Canon 10D so people everywhere are selling the D60. Dont be worried, however, the D60 is still a great camera, and for the money you can buy one for is a terriffic buy!

Lenses, however are the expensive part! What kind of shooting do you plan to do?

Craig

[loiosh]

If you're going to shoot action or animals, I wouldn't go with anything less than a 6x optical zoom, ie 1x-6x., unless you're going to go with a camera with interchangeable lenses. And don't even pay attention to digital zoom, all it does is to enlarge the pic.

[Evan3037]

im gona get the s45 soon, that mite be a good one for u

[hacked]

you want more optical, the more the better. Digtal zoom, just takes the picture and scales it, some times images can look very pixilated

[JimmyPin]

d@mnit.. why don't stores carry cameras that support raw format?