Expert: John Oliverio - 1/22/2009

Question
Hello John,
    I work on a parasail boat that offers pictures of the flights and we're looking to go digital. We've been doing 35mm rolls of 24 shots but our cameras are taking a beating. My question for you is what would be a good camera for us and can we get memory cards that only hold 20-30 shots that we can give right to the customer ? We've been doing about 500 24 shot rolls per 4 month season and need a camera that can handel it with one good 200ish lens.

Answer
Chris,

Wow...  parasail boat.  That's the life!

Well, I'm not sure what class of camera you expect, or the price you are willing to pay so I am going to make two suggestions on the camera and lens combination.

On the cheaper end I'd suggest the Nikon D40 and a 55-250mm VR lens.  You can probably pick one up as a kit for around $700.  Not sure what conditions are like on your boat but I have a feeling that this camera will be dead by the end of your season.

On the higher end is the Nikon D300. This camera is weather resistant and would hold up much better under harsh conditions.  For the lens I will have to mention 2 models because of price.  The lesser expensive lens I would suggest is the 70-300mm VR.  This is a great lens and very sharp.  Sells for around $550.  But it is not advertised as weather resistant.  The second choice would be the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR.  It is a tougher lens and offers some weather resistance.  But it costs around $1800.

Now on to memory cards. By setting the resolution on the camera lower and buying a relatively small card you could arrange to get 20-30 shots on a card.  The smallest card you can commonly find these days is about a 1 gigabyte.  But I think you would need to find a wholesaler because your unit cost (card vs. film) will be around twice as high.  Do you not have enough time with the customer to make them a few prints on a portable printer or even burn them a CD?

Also keep in mind that You may not want to compromise too much on the resolution.  If you set it too low you are limiting what the customer can then do with the picture.  I would think you would want to keep it high enough to make at least an 8x10 inch print....  so no lower than say around 5 million pixels.

TIP:  If the camera resolution menu doesn't express its size in mega-pixels it will have x/y axis numbers instead.  For example it might just say 1600x1200.  Just multiply the two numbers to get mega-pixels.

Well, I hope this helps.  Probably a longer answer than you wanted.  Sorry about that.  If I can help further just let me know.

John