On 8/13/07, samwise samwise@bagshot-row.org wrote:
Anyone got any recommendations or hints / tips for buying a digital camera. Looking at a budget of £100 - £150, for general all-round use
- preferably fairly compact.
What should I look for when buying a camera for use with Linux? What are the main open source apps and what do they need the camera to support? Is one that connects as a USB mass storage good enough? or should I expect more integration than that with the right camera?
Unless you want to use the camera as a webcam (or otherwise control the camera from your PC), USB mass storage is all you need.
In your price range you are unlikely to be shooting in RAW format, so that is one less worry (not an actual problem as Canon, Nikon, Pentax, etc are mostly supported).
Any recommended manufacturers which work best with open source software?
USB mass storage and JPEGs - what more do you need?
I'd watch out for the physical memory storage format (compact flash, SD, etc) to make sure you have a reader for it (my camera phone uses the tiny Sony Memory Stick thingies which are safer to leave in the phone than to remove and then lose).
For reference I have an old and trusty Canon A40 (2MP, compact flash, JPEGs, not USB mass storage, is supported in Linux), a Pentax *ist-DL (6MP, SD, JPEGs and RAW, is USB mass storage, is supported in Linux), and a Sony Ericsson K800 (3MP, tiny Sony thingies, JPEGs, is USB mass storage, is supported in Linux).
Good luck! Tim.