Trying to find the right camera

Question

I have a Kodak EasyShare Z740.  It has 5 megapixels and 10X optical zoom.  It's good outdoors if it's sunny, or indoors with decent lighting (and it takes very good sports/fast action photos).  Unfortunately, I can't seem to take photos if I'm outdoors at night.  If I have the "sports" setting on, the picture comes out dark, even if I have the flash on.  If I have the "night" setting on, the pictures tend to come out blurry.
My parents were supposedly trying to look for a camera for me for Christmas, but they've given up, cuz the prices are higher than they're willing to spend (my family has a tight budget this year, as do a lot of people).  I don't know how much my parents really bothered to look at cameras and whether or not they bothered to ask for a salesman's opinion.
I just explained to my parents that I've been getting extremely frustrated because I go to a lot outdoor sporting events (i.e. baseball games) where I take pictures, but once the sun starts setting and the stadium lights turn on, I can't seem to take good pictures.  Yet I see pictures that people upload, so it feels like I'm alone.  My parents seem to think this is nothing and my camera is fine, but they barely know how to use their camera.
I assume I really need a camera with more than 5 megapixels.  Anyone know of any make/models that won't break the bank?

Answer 1

Hi fowkeska,
Your described shooting condition of sports photography at night and outdoors is one of the most challenging photographic situations, and would be a challenge no matter what camera you have. The challenge really lies with availability of light. Even thought the human eye might see a scene as illuminated adequately at night, a camera does not. To capture an image at night using the available light you will need to set your camera's ISO to 800, which can only be done when the picture quality is set to good. Even at ISO 800 your pictures might turn out blurry, which usually means the camera is setting the shutter speed too slow. You could think about using the flash, but according to your manual when you are shooting a wide-angle shot the flash will only reach to 16 feet at ISO 168, and to 12 feet when set to telephoto. If you’re on a budget there is really is not camera that would do any better than what you have. More megapixels will not make an image that is incorrectly exposed look any better, but if an image is correctly exposed it will have better resolution if the camera has more megapixels. For this photographic situation I would look into getting a DSLR, which should allow you to set much higher ISO settings and allow you to use a much more powerful flash. I hope this helps!
Thanks for posting,
Allan
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Allan|Senior Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
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