Digital cameras for children-- advice requested

[Librarybabe]

My brother is taking his family, which includes two young (and amazingly smart, good looking, yadda yadda brag brag) daughters on a trip to the Grand Canyon in a couple weeks and wants to give each of the girls, ages 6 and 8 respectively, their own cameras. His criteria is this:

1. Inexpensive (I'm guessing less than $50USD per.

2. Decent picture quality

3. Point and shoot, not fiddly focus/panorama/cropping features.

4. Readily available from a chain brick-and-mortar or on-line store.

Suggestions, hints, advice welcome, especially from parents of kids w/cameras.
PM is okay


Many thanks, CSers!

[the_std]

I don't know any specific cameras to recommend, but I can tell you a few things to look for:

Sturdiness. You don't want one of the credit-card thin cameras because little hands are a lot less likely to be careful enough with them. Look for a bulkier model, perhaps even an older camera.

Lens. See if you can find a camera where the lens doesn't actually protrude from the camera when it's turned on. It is incredibly easy to damage the lens motor if bumped or dropped, and without it the whole camera is worthless.

If you're looking for something at or under $50, you might have to settle for a bottom-of-the-line camera. They generally have less megapixels and less fancy options, which sounds pretty ideal for the stated needs. A few reliable brands to look at: FujiFilm, Canon and Sony.

Good luck!

[Taboo]

I also vote for looking at older camera models online. However, be careful to find out how the photos are transferred onto a computer! Make sure that if it requires a certain operating system to install a program to transfer them, or if it requires a cable that may be hard to find, that it comes with said cable and you have the right OS, etc.

Amazon has some cameras designed just for kids, if you search 'cameras for children.' They may be a little more expensive than what you're looking for, but there are several options under $75.

[CaroPhoenix]

Fisher Price Kid Tough Digital Cameras

The pink one, at this time, is out of stock, and both can only be found online. They're $48.88 @ Wal-Mart.com

[the_std]

The only thing to watch out for with the Fisher-Price camera is that it has quite a low resolution (.3 to 1.3 megapixels) which will only print out at 4x6 and sit at 640x480 pixels on a screen, which isn't very big, plus it has limited memory of 128MB and I can't see an option for adding more memory.

Other than that, it looks pretty ideal for your needs.

[Evil Queen]

Well, I was going to suggest a JamCam. It's a simple digital camera made just for kids (or those new to digital cameras). But the Datajager suggested one of those Keychain cameras and said they're pretty good. Give it a look.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/product...:referralID=NA

[LionMan]

check out today's kids.woot

http://kids.woot.com

PS. No idea how good the camera is.

[Evil Queen]

check out today's kids.woot

http://kids.woot.com

PS. No idea how good the camera is.

..... Are you secretly DataJager? Because he suggested the same thing a couple minutes ago.

...Honey??

[TheSHAD0W]

Wally World sells some very inexpensive digital cameras.

I would recommend you get a REAL digital camera, not a specifically kid-safe one. It's the best way to teach a child to take care of things, even if some get broken.

[tropicsgoddess]

Pink Disney Pix Cick Princess Camera: This one has 16MB internal memory, holds 200 photos and is on sale for $29.95 on Amazon.com

Digital Concepts Camera for Kids: Holds up to 152 photos, is on sale for $14.99 at Amazon.com


Barbie Digital Camera: This requires 2 AAA Batteries, holds 107 pictures and includes PC Compatible drivers

[Merriweather]

My brother is taking his family, which includes two young (and amazingly smart, good looking, yadda yadda brag brag) daughters on a trip to the Grand Canyon in a couple weeks and wants to give each of the girls, ages 6 and 8 respectively, their own cameras. His criteria is this:

!

I can add a few things to this as well. My granddaughter spends her Easter vacation & a large portion of her summer with us, and I began to teach her photography last year (she was 5 1/2 then).

She's doing great with it, and is getting a better camera for her 7th birthday from her parents as a consequence of her interest and progress when staying with us. I even helped her complete her Brownie photography badge this summer

So, based on working with her, my suggestions are :

Forget kid's cameras, they lack settings and features needed if the child really likes taking photos. Get a small (not too small) camera, and pay attention to weight (with battery in). Heavier is harder for a small child to keep steady.

Get one where basic features (turning flash on and off, viewing photos on camera, etc) are either accessed by buttons on camera, or are easy to find at the main menu level. You don't want these things buried deep within menus. Check for an easy, intuitive menu system - very advanced features can be buried, but basics should be easy to find.

Don't get one with built in memory only (as a lot of kid's cameras are). You need memory cards, and lots of them. Once a child decides they like taking photos, they take photos! My granddaughter would walk around the house taking photos of everything that didnt' move (ok, even the cat, and she moved, LOL). She learned a lot though, about holding the camera steady, getting too close with a flash, etc. by looking at them, though.

In the same vein, consider one that uses AA or AAA batteries, and rechargeables and a charger - cheaper than buying multiples of the special-for-that-camera type of battery, and easy to get some if suddenly found without when on a trip. It's amazing how quickly a child can run down a camera battery, especially as they tend to use the LCD screen to look at photos taken already much more than most adults.

The best camera will last a while - meaning, basic functions will be easy to find on the menu, but it will have further features that they can find and use as they grown (hence the intuitive menu being so useful). They should be able to keep it at an auto setting and just point and shoot in the very beginning. But very soon they can learn about flash settings (going to the zoo is a great place to learn to turn off a flash so as not to disturb certain animals, but camera has to be kept much more still to avoid blur). And my granddaughter's biggest problem with her first camera (to be corrected with her new one next month) was no macro setting. She loves to take photos of flowers, we went to a tulip festival in the spring and she was in heaven, LOL. But she can't get the very close up detailed shots without a macro setting. I showed (and let her try) the setting on my own camera, and she's desperate to have that setting on her camera now.

Writst strap is essential. Have a rule and enforce it, that when walking around with camera, it HAS to be on the wrist. Amazing how many times a child will drop a camera in their hands, that wrist strap saves major damage. Also, get a case with a long strap, and have another rule that when NOT being used, the camera stays in the case and around the neck - saves lost cameras, kids set things down and forget them ALL the time (we've had to rescue the granddaughter's camers twice now, both times from restaurants).

Oh, and put a cute sticker on the camera and case (something childish). An adult finding such a camera, one that obviously says "a child owns me" is much more likely to turn it in than one that is assumed to belong to an adult. Sad, but true. Our granddaugher's camera is pink, in a pink case, with a princess sticker

Hope some of these help. Our granddaughter has now done scrapbooks of her photos taken when visiting, and she's not even 7 yet - though she has a lot of duds, she also has some very good photos, and is improving all the time, wouldn't surprise me if she has the makings of a great photographer.

One last bit of advice - keep it fun, don't push it, but do show them how to use the camera properly, point out what their mistakes are, yet also acknowledge that "odd" photos are just as valid as perfectly framed and staged ones, sometimes more so. Don't push them to use a camera when they want to just jump in and enjoy what's going on rather than photograph it, and don't stop them from photographing the mundane, or trying unusual viewpoints and settings.

It's so wonderful that kids can learn photography so early nowadays, with so much freedom. I had a camera as a child, but took few photos - film was expensive, developing was expensive, each shot had to really count, and by time you got them back, you had no idea what you had done wrong (or right) to get the results you did.

Oh, and be sure to download photos regularly to a computer and burn to a disk for the child to have. When my granddaughter visits, I immediately check her camera, and usually find photos that have been on there for months that my daughter and son-in-law have forgotten to download for her It also helps to print off a few photos, let them put them in a small album, rather than just have them on the computer.

I realize the cameras are for your brother's kids, it was just easier to write the advice to you, figuring you could pass it on to him if you wanted.