I'm looking for a digital camera, not anything particularly fancy but probably not the cheapest one can get (though maybe some really low-end would be good enough?)

Some context

I am one of the few people left in the world who doesn't yet have a smartphone. (I'm sure I might get one at some point, but it seems largely pointless when I have a computer readily available at home and at the office, and cell phone service coverage at home is… spotty at best.) It may be that modern smartphone cameras would do everything I need, and it could be that "just buy a smartphone" is the result of all this if that's the most economical approach, but I have a hunch that it isn't.

My existing camera broke, and so I'm looking for something to replace it, preferably before my newest baby arrives in January. I primarily am taking pictures of our family, though it's not impossible that I might be taking some nature pictures or other "touristy"-type things if we were able (at some point) to go on another vacation. I'm not looking to be a "photographer" or anything fancy, just wanting something I can use to capture memories easily.

Requirements

1. Some kind of flash. It's likely that a lot of the time the shots would be indoors. (And here's where I don't know if smartphone/tablet-style cameras have caught up with their little LEDs to the quality of a "real" flash for typical pictures; maybe they have.)
2. Decent picture quality. I'm assuming everything nowadays has a reasonable number of "megapixels" that I don't really need to worry about the details here? I doubt it's worth paying significantly more to get more here unless it's obviously worth it in some way.
3. Ability to take videos. This is the modern "home camcorder" I guess, where it's nice to take a video of kids doing cute things. I'm thinking at least 720p resolution would be fine.
4. A timer. It's nice to set it down on a table with a delay so I can occasionally be in the shot. Maybe something that has it take a bunch of pictures in a row would be helpful.
5. Decent battery life. Some of the low-end cameras I was eyeing had reviews along the lines of "you only take a few shots before needing to charge or replace the batteries", and I think we need something a bit more than that. But it's not like we'll be taking thousands of shots over a long time period before being able to charge it again, so it doesn't need to be too crazy.
6. Durable. It's be nice if I could feel comfortable handing it to the kids without being worried about them breaking it.
7. Easy to transfer to my pictures folder on my NAS drive. If it was wifi-enabled and just uploaded everything automatically that would be cool, but I'm perfectly happy taking an SD card out and putting it into my computer.
8. I'm hoping for under US$100, preferably more like $50 if that's possible. This isn't a big "investment". I'm actually wondering if getting something secondhand would be better, but I'm not sure what or how to look for something. But you may be able to upsell me to something more expensive if you can convince me it's worth it in the long run.

I'm just not sure where to start, other than browsing through retailers' web sites at everything they have under "digital camera" and reading a ton of reviews. And maybe I've missed something I should actually care about in my list of "requirements" above? What camera should I be getting?

posted about 4 years ago

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2y ago by Mithical‭

Peter Cooper Jr.‭

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