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Can you reccommend a fool-proof camera?

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Greetings! I hope you'll bear with me while I ask what might seem like a silly question. But there seems to be a million small point-and-shoots about which I know nothing.

I am a volunteer for a local non-profit and have been providing graphic design and photography to them at no charge. My goal has been to help them brand their identity and evolve their communications. It's been interesting and challenging to bring them from "good-enough" to "wow, that's nice".

One of the issues I face with them is obtaining good quality photos for publication. There are many instances where photos are required for public relations and/or other communications and the photos are universally terrible. Some on this forum may be able to take great shots with their iPhones, but that is not true for most of the "civilians" who volunteer.

So I'm considering making a donation of a camera to the organization. The camera needs to provide enough resolution for newspaper reproduction and the occasional offset printed brochure as well as for online use. It needs to be simple to operate. There will be no post-processing, no RAW, no special lenses or attachments. Ideally the various users would simply take it out, turn it on, frame and push the button.

Any suggestions? I don't have any brand preferences and neither will they.

Thanks for your consideration and suggestions!
Tim
 

simonclivehughes

Active member
Tim,

Although I don't own one (I'm still using my LX5), I'd suggest the Sony RX100 for the following reasons:

1. Excellent OOC jpegs
2. Really good low-light / high ISO performance
3. Reasonable zoom range (anything too long is just too prone to camera shake)
4. Sony has quite a good face recognition function

There are a lot of other excellent functions, such as Hand-held Twilight mode etc, but for just "pull out and shoot", I think this is an excellent choice.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
 

Hosermage

Active member
Haha, Simon, I was just about to warn against the RX100 :)

The camera is quite good, no doubt, but I'm afraid it's not quite fool proof. I know because I have tried to let my wife and mom use it several time and it was a disaster. Too many dials that gets accidentally turned and mess up the setting. With some caution, though, maybe you can configure it to be fool proof.

Most of the time, the dials gets accidentally turned when pulling out of pocket/bags. So make sure you tell them to set the mode dial to the intelligent-auto or just auto. Then configure something to the big front dial to something less important.
 

simonclivehughes

Active member
Thanks for chiming in, David. As I said, I don't have one, but felt it might be a good choice.

(Probably should have known better as I'm shooting a couple of NEX 7s!) :eek:

Cheers,
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Thanks for the responses! I might be asking for too much here since most of the forum members appreciate a level of control that would stymie the users of the camera I'm looking for. There are simply too many options for P&S cameras for me to keep track of.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the camera would be used to capture the classic "grip & grin" type shot about 95% of the time. The kicker is that the Executive Director will be in the shot so will hand the camera to someone else to make the capture. So about the only instruction that user will have during their 60 seconds of holding the camera will be "press here". So it's got to be simple and reliable.

Maybe I'm dreaming.

Thanks again,
Tim
 

Streetshooter

Subscriber Member
Unfortunately I also would suggest anything before the RX100.
It seems to m that you need a zoom lens. That rules out the GRD4.

I would look to the Canon G series. My wife uses my trusty G9 all the time. It's set to Auto everything and never misses a shot in any condition.

The G9 is war proved rugged. So the G12, G15 or the mighty G1x. All are very rugged, very intuitive and give great results.

good luck in your quest....don
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
It all depends on the fool.
A really accomplished fool would best any camera.
-bob
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
I'd forgotten about the Canon G cameras. I'll take a look at those. Probably some good deals around. Thanks!

Tim
 

Shashin

Well-known member
I might suggest a m4/3 camera with a zoom lens. The quality with be there for both still and video. Just put it in auto and it will just work. The olympus cameras have IBIS which will be good as you don't want to arm a fool with a tripod. But it also has somewhere to go if they hire a non-fool.
 
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