Matt Long wrote:.

Hi All,A friend of mine is planning on purchasing 12 cameras for her artclass to teach her students basic photography.Can anyone recommend the best camera in the $170.00 range, with goodpicture quality and zoom capabilities?Thanks.Matt.

Amazon.com have two Canons: the A460 at $111 and the A550 at $129. At this price you won't get features like manual controls, but these are two robust cameras with good image quality and 4x zoom lenses..

Androohttp://Androo.smugmug.com..

I have classroom experience in this area 3-5th grade level, small group..

The classroom was modern & well lit. I found that it was difficult to do anything in the classroom because of the lighting levels. Even though the room was modern & well lit by overhead fluorescent lights, I was surprised that I needed ISO 400 or greater for even marginal hand-held results..

This pretty much restricts the choice of cameras to the Fuji F series in my opinion. I tired Canon S1 IS, fixed focus ultra compact.... not fast enfu, too complex, etc....

The Fujis have other important attributes for the classroom situation:.

1. built in battery & charging system... important! I thought AA's or AAA's would be best. WRONG - too short a lifetime, difficulty with operating funds to replace batteries, opening camera, batteries inserted wrong, batteries lost, battery doors broken, etc.....

2. USB transfer of photos to PC..

3. Rugged construction..

4. Reasonable macro, reasonable flash, reasonable zoom abilities..

But most of all the Fuji's are able to take photos in the classroom. It is a lot harder to get kids outside than I thought it would be. Too many school rules..

The feature menus on the fuji's are simple and well organized. It'd be easy to teach the effects of ISO etc, shutter speed etc in real life in the classroom because the student can adjust the camera from being able to take a reasonable picture to not being able to do so..

Any other camera I know of will have problems with classroom lighting levels or be too complex for beginners regardless of cost...

<< This pretty much restricts the choice of cameras to the Fuji F seriesin my opinion. >>.

Which Fuji F series do you recommend?.

Thanks..

Matt..

I recommend whichever Fufi F that meets the budget requirements..

F10,F20,F30,F31fd,F40fd... it really doesn't matter much which I think. They all have about the same picture quality so far as I know. I have an F20 & like it a lot..

I recently saw a good deal on refurbished/recertified Fuji F10's for $99 each. I'd get as many of those as I had the budget for & hold some as backups..

I'd also consider spending a bit on a few accessories, like an IR filter & a few close-up lenses....I'd glue adapters to the camera lens barrels to accept the adapters.... it is easy and inexpensive to do. Maybe a few small tripods..

Dave..

How about fuji a-series? Couple of simple tripods might be an idea as well.Don't wait for the Nikon D-whatever, have fun now!http://www.flickr.com/photos/j_wijnands/..