XTR2Turbo Posted June 11, 2003 Posted June 11, 2003 whatever you chose definitely recommend you buy one. Brilliant things. I had a Fuji2700 but have just upgraded to a Konica KD500Z. Has 5M and movie capability. I would advise going for high resolutions if you want toprint. If you only want for websites then 2M will be fine. The quality of the 5M is awesome. Look at these saved as medium quality jpegs and scaled down in photoshop. David Quote
Mark Stanton Posted June 11, 2003 Author Posted June 11, 2003 I quite like the spec and info on the Canon ixusdig400 Anyone used it Quote
Barry Ashcroft Posted June 11, 2003 Posted June 11, 2003 Mark I use a fuji finepix S304 3m pixels and a 6x Optical zoom dont bother with digital zooms they are a waste of time.My zoom lens is great for track action from deep banks. regards Barry Quote
chazpowerslide Posted June 11, 2003 Posted June 11, 2003 I got a Fugi Finepix 401, £360. It,s a cracking camera small and compact and up to 4million mega pixels. You could do a lot worse............. Chaz. Quote
Fat Albert Posted June 12, 2003 Posted June 12, 2003 I second the recommendation for the Fuji S304, has a fine optical zoom, looks like a conventional (but smaller) SLR and has an (electronic) 'through the lens' viewfinder. The last was the most important feature for me as using an 'on the back' LCD is practically impossible in bright sunlight and I can't bear not seeing the picture you're about to take 'through the lens'. It can be used 'point and shoot' or in a more sophisticated way at your choice. The only drawback is that the viewfinder is not as high resolution as the CCD but at this price point (£280 from Curry's in March) there are no digital cameras with optical viewfinders anymore, mores the pity. You have to pay getting on for £1000 to get something noticably better (Olympus E10/E20). Quote
Mike H Posted June 12, 2003 Posted June 12, 2003 I got a Fugi Finepix 401, £360. It,s a cracking camera small and compact and up to 4million mega pixels. You could do a lot worse............. Chaz. I've had a Fuji FinePix 4800z for about 2 years - it's excellent: macro, 3x optical zoom (digital zoom can be done on your PC), movies and plenty of manual features. Now tho' it seems to have been replaced by the 401. A mate has one of these and it's pretty good. Very compact and great features (like 1600 ASA !!! Make sure you try them all in the shop, I found Fuji were the fastest at actually taking a picture. Some of the Canons at the time were awful. If it were my money I would go for the 401 now based on convenience, then the 601. Mike Quote
S8ight Posted June 12, 2003 Posted June 12, 2003 two things that swayed me to my camera; the quality of the screen, dont worry about what it will be like outside in bright light, you can get little shields for them. same sort of thing you get on a view finder. the other is if the view finder is a digital one check the quality of the image. i came very very close to buying my first choice until the bloke in the shop told me, in a very hushed voice, to "look through the view finder". i did and the quality of the image was terrible ! glad he told me, if i'd have got that one i'd have been miffed to say the least Quote
Toby Mack Posted June 12, 2003 Posted June 12, 2003 I have used the Canon ixus 400. If I wanted a camera of that type I think it is the one I would buy. Only complaint is a lack of manual settings but then that isn't what this category of cameras is about. If you want cheaper/larger/more manual settings then it might be worth looking at the Canon A60/70. Do work out what you want first though. Is video important?, size, cost, manual features etc. Quote
Toby Mack Posted June 12, 2003 Posted June 12, 2003 BTW, to follow up Mikes comment about time to take pictures.... This can vary a lot but there are three main times to worry about. 1) Time from turning camera on to ready to take shot. Important if you want to "capture the moment". Varies from a few seconds upwards. 2) Time to autofocus/autoexpose. (ie time from half shutter press to ready to take) Generally around 0.5 to 1 second. 3) Time to take shot from full shutter press to capture. Can be pretty dire on some cameras (ie 0.5 seconds or so) but the later canons (eg) are pretty instant (0.1 sec or so). This last one is important as for action shots (Cars/kids etc!)you can pre-focus/expose with a half press and then fully press to capture the image when it is framed correctly. fwiw, I think the later canons (including the ixus400) are either good or very good for these timings. www.dpreview.com has some pretty good reviews with details on this sort of thing. Quote
gregh Posted June 12, 2003 Posted June 12, 2003 I've had the Ixus v1 for 2 years now, it is superb. This was taken when I first got it and has been size reduced which has lowered the quality Quote
Ian Podmore Posted June 12, 2003 Posted June 12, 2003 Can't add much to all this except: Forget any digital zoom specification, you can do the same thing on your computer. a 3x optical seems about the normal for a compact. Get a nice big memory card (128 MB?) when you buy your camera so you can fit plenty of high resolution pictures on it. There would be nothing much worse than taking a cracking picture in low res and wanting to blow it up or have it printed. You may get a better than advertised deal as well if you purchase with the camera. Of the ones I loooked at, I liked the Canon S45 type things, very well built with very easy manual features, and the Nikon 2800 (I think) as it was very natural to hold... The one think I don't like about the one I got the wife is the time it takes to focus before taking a shot, and the multi shot mode is not very fast. Quote
Mark Stanton Posted June 12, 2003 Author Posted June 12, 2003 which has lowered the quality Yes but it is a Cateringvan and why isn't it raining at Croft Thanks for all the input folks - I've got some review reading to catch up on Canon Ixus or Fuji finepix heads or tails Quote
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