Hi All,

So I want to buy an inexpensive (100 bucks or so) digital camera for simple pictures to use on eBay and simple stuff. Things like high megapixels, lots of memory, and zooms are unimportant to me. I'd like a Mavica b/c the floppy is so convenient, but the price seems to be higher than I want to spend for it.

Any recommendations? I'm sure I can do better by buying used... What model should I look at?

- Thanx
- Jon

You can get USB "webcam" things for under twenty bucks in many places.

I've got one and it totally sucks. But if you don't want to spend any money, you don't mind low quality, and you don't mind being tethered to the PC to take pictures, it works for things like ebay photos.

I want something with a LITTLE higher quality than that. I don't mind spending a hundy on it...

- Jon

What I'd recomend is the olympus D500-L, just because I have it and still think it's a great all around camera, even if the resoultion sucks by today's standards. You can probably pick it up for $150 on ebay, which is a bit more than you're looking to spend... (the D600L is higher res, but costs more)

I like it and bought it for $800 when it came out because it's an SLR camera. It's still an autofocus/one piece, but you look through the actual lens. For action shots, it's great because you can pre-focus, and take the picture immediatly when you press down. You also know where it's focusing, and can tell if it's actually focused or just think it is.

It's downsides are that it's big by today's standards, and it's outdated. I still keep mine around, and I'm not replacing it until I can afford a canon D30/60.

Matthew

I want something with a LITTLE higher quality than that. I don't mind spending a hundy on it...

This is what I did when I shopped for a digital camera to send as a Christmas present...

Do a search on ebay for Digital Camera limited by the maximum you would spend. Then sort the search results by auction end date (that is the default) and start down the list, soonest-ending auction first. You can do a Google search or go to dpreview.com or any number of places to find information about the specific camera you are looking at on ebay. As soon as you find one that meets your requirements, get ready to bid-snipe it, chances are the auction ends in just a few minutes, there are so many digital cameras for sale. If you don't get it, try the next one in line. Don't get all hung up on "...is this the absolute best camera for the money" concept, don't worry about paying $20 more than you absolutely had to -- it's only a digital camera, it isn't life or death, and a month from now you'll never miss the $20 you might have overpaid.

You should be able to get what you need in just a few hours of this.

tanstaafl.