The best cameras for Mother's Day (with free 2-day shipping from Amazon)
It's not too late to get your mom (or your children's mom for that matter) a digital camera--especially since Amazon is offering free 2-day shipping on 41 popular cameras. Here are my picks from among them for the various moms in your life.
It's not too late to get your mom (or your children's mom for that matter) a digital camera--especially since Amazon is offering free 2-day shipping on 41 popular cameras. Here are my picks from among them for the various moms in your life:
The New Mom
She has a new little one at home and needs to have a easy-to-use yet sturdy camera to record that first smile, first tooth, first meal (you get the picture--no pun intended). Oh, and it should be tough enough to hold up to babies and toddlers, of course. The Olympus Stylus Tough-6000 is waterproof to 10 feet, shockproof to a 5-foot drop, and freeze proof to 14°F, so it should be able to withstand most of what a mom, baby, or toddler can throw at it (literally). Plus, the 4.9 frames per second continuous shooting speed (albeit at 3 megapixels) will let her capture the kids on the go. Face and smile detection features will help make sure she gets great shots of her precious subjects.
Her kids are a little older and she's always on the go with them, so she needs a versatile camera that's great at capturing action shots. While the Casio Exilim Pro EX-F1 got lots of attention for its weirdly cool super-slow-motion video shooting capability, it incredibly fast 60 fps ultra-high speed burst mode will ensure that mom gets every shot, from the sidelines to the backyard. Plus, the Digital Anti-Shake feature helps to mimimize image blur even when shooting at slower shutter speeds. (And if the high-price tag of the EX-F1 scares you off, take a look at the Exilim EX-FC100 or Exilim EX-FS10 which also offer super high-speed shooting.)
She works hard at maintaining that work/family balance, so she deserves some expensive toys (or that's what I like to say anyway). Though a slew of new entry-level dSLRs have been released in the year since the Canon EOS Rebel XSi came out, its price has come down accordingly and it's still a solid choice for great image quality in a midrange prosumer dSLR.
Some of these moms are tech savvy and have time on their hands to experiment with their photography, but many are like the ones in my family, and the catch phrase for them is "easy to use." Though digital camera enthusiasts tend to not take Kodak cameras seriously (mainly due to a reputation for weak image quality), I swear by them for folks like my parents, for whom image quality isn't much of an issue if they can't figure out how to use the camera. The Kodak EasyShare M1033 is as close to a no-brainer to use as you'll get while retaining higher-end features like HD video recording and face detection. Plus, grandmas will like the big 3-inch LCD on which to show off their favorite shots of grandkids.
