wrightster Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 when it comes to all things pc related i am a bit thick but i do have a pc at home a pentium 2 (i think) got it 2nd hand so not 100% sure but i would like a digital camera can anyone advise me will i need to buy software to view the pics or will it come with the camera and can you advise me on a good one to get i dont really want to spend more than £200.00 (as saving for westie) TIA ( i get the impression that most of you are pretty knowledgable when it comes to this sort of thing) also an after thought does my pc need to be a specific spec for viewing photos ? Quote
mel 1 Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 Hi, I have a Sony 3.2 mega pixels which I find is very good,cost about £290 in this country,can get them cheaper in the states. What ever camera you chose will give you instructions on how to install the drivers for your camera,very straight forward. Beware of what camera you buy that you get the number of pixels as high as possible which will give you the best pictures. The cameras are easy to use and very simple to download info onto your pc. Hope this is of some use to you. mel 1 Quote
westy Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 Hi there, A few months ago I researched buying a camera and ended up with the Fuji Finepix 2800. I find the picture quality amazing and when you purchase the 64mb media you can hold 197 1280x1024 res. pictures before needing to download them to your PC! If your running XP then the camera should plug and play without a problem and will simply form a new drive letter in windows explorer say, d, e depending on your configuration. If you’re not running XP the camera will come with its own software to handle them. All PII motherboards come with USB which is normally the port needed to download images to your PC. I purchased mine from www.InternetCamerasDirect.co.uk and found it a stress free affair. When you purchase buy the best rechargeable batteries you can find and a decent charger, these things eat through them very quickly. Westy. Quote
samcooke Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 I too have a Fudgey fine pix, which was well within your budget complete with software, all leads and a 16mb card (£145 IIRC). 2 mega pix is fine for most situations, it's only if you want to blow photos up beyond a4 size and have a mustard printer that you need more. The Fudgey also does 80 seconds of film (enough to capture me doing a whole lap of Donnington, honest) which can be downloaded and saved straight into .avi format, although sans sound. Make sure it uses USB rather than parallel (as some early ones did) or it'll take you a month to download every pic. What westy said about them eating batteries. Other than that, dunno. It would prolly be worth buying three quid's worth of 'What Digicam' magazine or similar. Quote
steppenwolf Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 I am quite heavily into nature photography and these days use a 5.2 megapixel Minolta Dimage 7 giving 2560 x 1920 pixel photographs but for general use this is a real overkill. All the build photographs of my car were taken with a 1 megapixel camera giving just 1024 x 768 pixel photographs. This older digital camera was just about suitable for the purpose but a 2 megapixel camera like the Fuji Finepix 2600Z for a current price of £200.00 would make an excellent all round camera. This comes with all the drivers plus some good additional software and a USB connection lead. USB requires a PC with Windows 98, 2000, ME or XP so although your PII PC MAY have USB ports, you must have an operating system newer than Windows 95 to make use of them. The built-in/supplied memory that comes with most digital cameras is usually woefully inadequate so budget for an extra 64 or even better 128Mb of RAM. Both Smartmedia (as used in the Finepix 2600Z) and Compact Flash (as used in my Minolta) can be bought for about £40.00 for 128Mb. In addition to Westy's advice on decent batteries, you should budget for at least one extra spare set of NiMh cells and a fast charger so that you don't run flat at a crucial photographic opportunity! Quote
JonnyBoy Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 Make sure you avoid any camera with rechargeable ni-cd AA-type batteries as they suck. 10 minutes of using the screen and they will be dead. Ni-mh are better but still need care. some camera manufacturers are wising up and putting a Li-ion battery in. Get the best resolution you can afford, but dont forget that what ever the resolution you get, you will not be able to blow the image up that much. Digis are great for computer/ web based work and small 'reminders' but no where near as good as a 35mm for real pics! I use my sisters Fuji 6 mega pixel porshe styled beast, and the high res photos are great. but then 550 squid (at the time) is a **** load of cash for a camera! Great for drunken nights out with a slide show in the morning to show who did what/who are possible the best thing about any digi Oh yes, and you need a bl**** good printer because it costs a small fortune to get glossy printouts from your local reprographics shot Quote
Rusty Nuts Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 i was thinking of doing the same but am going to wait and save the pennys to buy a digital camcorder as u can get stills from these kills 2 birds with 1 stone i would also try morgan computers they sell end of line and manufacturer refurbished goods and are quite cheap they have got a store in birmingham and also have a internet site but i dont have the address to hand hope this helps shindha Quote
steppenwolf Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 am going to wait and save the pennys to buy a digital camcorder as u can get stills from these kills 2 birds with 1 stone You will get stills from a digital camcorder but be prepared to be underwhelmed by the quality ..... Quote
chazpowerslide Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 New recently is the Fuji Finepix 401 it uses Multimedia and is plug and play on XP. It's an excelent bit of kit going up to 4 million pixels. Easy to use straight-forward menues and about a max of 4 min video streaming. Cost £360 and PC(****e)World threw in a 128mb multimedia card in free (but i had to haggle hard!!! Highly recommended. Chaz Quote
Chris Elworthy Posted December 23, 2002 Posted December 23, 2002 I second Westy's view of InternetCamerasDirect - used them last week and are very efficient + info on website, reviews etc very helpful. Like Steppenwolf, plumped for Minolta DiMAGE, but the next one down - DiMAGE 5, mainly for the 7x Zoom. Definitely need at least one set of batteris spare as it seems to chew them in about 10 minutes, and get a Mains adaptor for when you are uploading. And remember ...RTFI.....carefully Quote
Mike H Posted December 24, 2002 Posted December 24, 2002 New recently is the Fuji Finepix 401 it uses Multimedia and is plug and play on XP. It's an excelent bit of kit going up to 4 million pixels. Easy to use straight-forward menues and about a max of 4 min video streaming. Cost £360 and PC(****e)World threw in a 128mb multimedia card in free (but i had to haggle hard!!! Highly recommended. Chaz I have a Fuji FinePix 4800z which is one of the Porsche designed efforts. It really is excellent and has a lot of manual features to keep the techy occupied. It also has it's own rechargable battery (not AA) which provides excellent life. If I were to buy one now I would also go for the Fuji 401, a friend has just bought one and it's excellent. It is the replacement for the 4800 (I think) but is much more compact. As a result I wouldn't expect the flash to be up to much but the 401 will operate at the equivalent of 1600ASA which is fantastic for taking piccies of your pride and joy in the garage. I reckon if you look you could get one for £300 ish. More than you wanted to spend but they are good - IMO. cheers Mike Quote
JamesD Posted December 24, 2002 Posted December 24, 2002 USB requires a PC with Windows 98, 2000, ME or XP so although your PII PC MAY have USB ports, you must have an operating system newer than Windows 95 to make use of them. Or Windows 95 OSR (2nd release), you can find this out by right clicking on My computer icon on the Desktop, In the information tab you will have a verison number of the Operating System, OSR will have a b in it somewhere. I have a Sony DSC-P5 and it is superb! JD Quote
wrightster Posted December 24, 2002 Author Posted December 24, 2002 Thanks again folks will wait for the jan sales, see if i can get a bargain Quote
Mark Williamson Posted December 24, 2002 Posted December 24, 2002 The battery consumption on AA batteries is hugely different from camera to camera, my previous camera was an Agfa, it gobbled Ni-Mh batteries in about 10 minutes use. My current camera however a Sony cybershot P71, they last forever! I would say don't buy one that uses a unique battery, they cost a fortune to replace or carry as a spare. Happy hunting in the sales. Mark. Quote
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