Best Camera for Aunt

shovenose · Dec 25, 2013

So, my aunt has some old Canon 2.1MP digital camera I gave her a long time ago. It takes really great pictures surprisingly, but she doesn't really ever use it. I don't think she particularly likes it. I should convince her to try it more before she upgrades to a new, expensiver (you know what i mean) camera.

She still uses a Canon film camera as her main camera. Finally I gave her a new laptop to upgrade from her Celeron M Toshiba with a 40GB hard drive LOL, so if she wanted to she could store lots of photos on her computer finally, if she switched to digital. Now she has my old Lenovo V570 with 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive. I think the Core i5 Quad is better than that horrible single core. Either way, plenty for storing and emailing photos.

She likes my D3200 but I got the feeling she didn't want something so big and complicated. I think a DSLR is out. I showed her my S110 too but she wants a viewfinder.

The first thing she asked both times I introduced the new cameras was "does it zoom a lot" so I was thinking that a "super zoom" would be a good choice. I found the Panasonic ZS30 but I think it's a little more than she'd want to spend and it doesn't have a viewfinder. I think she does know some basic stuff like apertures, etc. because she asked me about that too (at which point I'm like I have no idea LOL)...

SD card storage would be preferred, because her new laptop has an SD card reader built in, and we would also easily swap SD cards to share photos which would be nice. I'm not sure of her budget for this but she recently bought my previous smartphone from me for $100 and I gave her my previous Blu-Ray player w/netflix because I know she wanted one but "no more technology budget" because she already bought a nice TV this year. (Her previous one was a 14" CRT TV with a VCR built in LOL)

Probably way too much information most of it irrelevant but I would love some guidance from people that actually know things about cameras. Merry Christmas,
Michael

PS: what about this? it's affordable and has a viewfinder:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-A1400-Stabilized-Wide-Angle/dp/B00AWYMXZY/ref=zg_bs_502394_8

tirediron · Dec 25, 2013

Depending on budget, I would show her the Canon G15 or the Sony Nex series.

robbins.photo · Dec 25, 2013

shovenose said:
So, my aunt has some old Canon 2.1MP digital camera I gave her a long time ago. It takes really great pictures surprisingly, but she doesn't really ever use it. I don't think she particularly likes it. I should convince her to try it more before she upgrades to a new, expensiver (you know what i mean) camera.

She still uses a Canon film camera as her main camera. Finally I gave her a new laptop to upgrade from her Celeron M Toshiba with a 40GB hard drive LOL, so if she wanted to she could store lots of photos on her computer finally, if she switched to digital. Now she has my old Lenovo V570 with 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive. I think the Core i5 Quad is better than that horrible single core. Either way, plenty for storing and emailing photos.

She likes my D3200 but I got the feeling she didn't want something so big and complicated. I think a DSLR is out. I showed her my S110 too but she wants a viewfinder.

The first thing she asked both times I introduced the new cameras was "does it zoom a lot" so I was thinking that a "super zoom" would be a good choice. I found the Panasonic ZS30 but I think it's a little more than she'd want to spend and it doesn't have a viewfinder. I think she does know some basic stuff like apertures, etc. because she asked me about that too (at which point I'm like I have no idea LOL)...

SD card storage would be preferred, because her new laptop has an SD card reader built in, and we would also easily swap SD cards to share photos which would be nice. I'm not sure of her budget for this but she recently bought my previous smartphone from me for $100 and I gave her my previous Blu-Ray player w/netflix because I know she wanted one but "no more technology budget" because she already bought a nice TV this year. (Her previous one was a 14" CRT TV with a VCR built in LOL)

Probably way too much information most of it irrelevant but I would love some guidance from people that actually know things about cameras. Merry Christmas,
Michael

PS: what about this? it's affordable and has a viewfinder:
Amazon.com: Canon PowerShot A1400 16.0 MP Digital Camera with 5x Digital Image Stabilized Zoom 28mm Wide-Angle Lens and 720p HD Video Recording (Black): Camera & Photo

As far as bridge cameras or "super-zooms" I was a big fan of the Panasonic FZ200 myself. Not sure if that's in her budget range or not but if so it is definitely worth a look. It's very easy to use even for the beginner particularly in scene mode, it's lightweight and easy to carry around and it takes very good pictures.