Digital Camera

[Darrell O'Neill]

can anyone suggest a digital camera for normal type of use in the price bracket of around £100-£150  

I know nothing about these but would like something halfway decent.      

[Buzz Billsberry]

Darrell there's plenty of choice out there for that sort of price for just point and shot. I would personally go for the most pixels, most in that price range have around 6 million pixels.Pixels generally give you a sharper more defined picky so more the better. I have an olympus which I've had for 3 years is 3.2 million pixels and takes great pickys.

I'd just stick with a good brand name and lots of pixels and ease of operation etc

Most of the pickys taken on me website click on 'wWw' below to see quality but don't forget the pickys on me website are  thumb nails of the orginals

Buzz

[Darrell O'Neill]

Cheers Buzz...  

At what sort of price do you get a good 'un....

[Boomy]

Depending on whether you want to drag a bigger camera around or not, i can highly recommend a second hand Olympus E-10.

It may go just over budget, but they were over a grand when they first came out a few years ago.

If you are into taking pictures, or would like to learn to dabble in the more complex side of things, these are superb bargains.

They are digital SLR's, but leave them on auto mode and you never need fiddle with the hundreds of settings.

I got mine purely because i was fed up with the PC world 150-200 quid specials going wrong, not having many features or taking very average pics.

It cost me £400ish second hand when i got mine and it has been a superb bit of kit for me.

It won't fit in your pocket though .

Looking on ebay you can get some great examples for just over 200 notes buy it now.

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It may not be what you are after though as i say, but they take amazing pics in various formats (including RAW).

On default settings i use the 2240x1680, point, click and that's pretty much it.

Delve deeper however and you will find a ton of options you would never get on many of the other cameras for that price.

[Darrell O'Neill]

  looks cool...... but may give the impression i actually know something about taking pics....  

can a lower res, camera like that (ie.4million) really take better pics than a point and press (at say 6million) in the hands of a  numpty ?

[deano.1]

Can't go wrong with an Olympus IMHO    

[nikpro]

  looks cool...... but may give the impression i actually know something about taking pics....  

can a lower res, camera like that (ie.4million) really take better pics than a point and press (at say 6million) in the hands of a  numpty ?

Don't get dragged into the mega pixel war - the number of pixels has very little to do with the quality of the photograph.

4 million is more than enough to take really good quality pictures.

[Boomy]

I can't believe we are talking about cameras again Mr nikpro Sir

He is correct though, you can still get great images with such a camera.

After getting my Olympus, i soon discovered that many pictures, even ones taken in the past, can really come to life with a quick bit of editing or cropping on a PC.The camera took some really nice images and it was only then i started to think about what they could look like if you made a wee bit of effort.

I assure you i know naff all about cameras btw and still don't really.

The pictures below for example were all taken with my camera, non of them were planned, i just stopped walking, pointed, clicked and carried on walking.

I then enhanced them a wee bit in paintshop, normal practice for photo type peeps (not that i am an expert mind you!)

In some i also edited out a few imperfections such as an empty coke can on the beach etc and then put a small border round them.

All very very easy and basic stuff to do but you can really get some nice looking pictures that way.

That is if you are interested in such things of course.If however you just want to point, click and accept whatever you take as it is, then this is still a great camera.

I'm just pointing out that the images it produced were of a much higher quality than i was used to so it made me enjoy them even more and take a bit more of an interest.

These are all resized though.You could for example crop various sections of the original images, cutting out anything you don't like the look of and they would still be large, sharp pictures.

In fact that is one benefit of having huge images, you can effectively find pictures within pictures if you see what i mean.

Anyway, here are a few snaps to give you an idea of what i mean.

It's also quite good at the close up type pics, although they look better with a tripod or something as apposed to me just holding the camera and trying not to shake too much!.

[Mark Stanton]

I've used a Fuji Finepix for a few years, solid metal case, decent lens enough pixels and easy to use    

[JeffC]

I wanted to take car/family pics, Im no David Bailey and  just wanted a point and press  camera     I bought a canon ixus, think cost me £140 off ebay about 3 months ago, does exactly what I need and best bit is its tiny about same size as a credit card     

loads on ebay at the mo. yZ31388QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem" target="_blank">like here

[nlash]

I totally agree with Nikpro re the number of pixels. Its not the number of pixels that give you a quality picture, but the quality of the lens projecting the image onto the sensor. A digital camera is basically a computer with a lens slapped on the front, and as with all computers, garbage in equals garbage out, hence the need for a decent lens.

Unless you intend to enlarge beyond A3, then a 4 mega pixel camera is sufficient enough for most users needs.

Boomy's suggestion to buy a digital SLR and leave it on Auto is ludicrous. This is just a waste of a camera's abilities and if you have no intention of producing creative photographs then there is no point in having the extra weight and bulk of an SLR.

I know you have set a budget but if you save the pennies and go for a Fuji Finepix F30, you will never need another digital camera for at least 5 years, its that good.

Click here

For £150 buy a Canon for all round quality and a good lens. You may be able to get a Powershot A540 for that price on ebay.

[Karl Woolf]

I`ve had a nikon coolpix 775 for a few years now and could do with something new as its getting abit behind now.

One main critism of this camera, which I think is due to its older technology,

is the delay between pressing the button and it actually taking the picture.

Is this something that you don`t get with more modern cameras.

I quite like the looks of the canon ixus for size, how does it compare with the A540

[nlash]

The Ixus range of cameras are superb ultra compacts. The Powershot range are slightly bigger, known as just compacts in the industry. As such, the lens on the Powershots are of a larger diameter and have a better quality than the smaller lenses fitted to an 'ultra compact'. Thats no to say that the Ixus range will produce a bad picture, The quality will be high and acceptable to most. The powershot range however have a reputation for producing outstanding images for their price.

Shutter delay is improving all the time as the CCD sensors get better they take less time to charge up. New compacts are noticably better in this area nowadays.

I'm a Nikon advocate, and love their pro cameras but wouldn't recommend their compacts to anyone, Canon do a far better job in this area

[Boomy]

Boomy's suggestion to buy a digital SLR and leave it on Auto is ludicrous. This is just a waste of a camera's abilities and if you have no intention of producing creative photographs then there is no point in having the extra weight and bulk of an SLR.

I know you have set a budget but if you save the pennies and go for a Fuji Finepix F30, you will never need another digital camera for at least 5 years, its that good.

I was trying to point out that you may actually start to take more of an interest in taking pictures once you have such a camera.

Hence this bit for example:

"I'm just pointing out that the images it produced were of a much higher quality than i was used to so it made me enjoy them even more and take a bit more of an interest."

There is however no need to be scared of such a camera because the auto mode takes some fantastic pictures.However if you later want to dig a little deeper (as i mentioned) you now have a cheapish camera that has plenty of features to allow you to do so (as i mentioned).

I also pointed out that is a BIG SLR camera and that it may not be the type of thing that is of interest if you don't want to carry such a thing around.

Hardly ludicrous?.

Ludicrous to me, at least at my level of photography would be buying the same E-10 when it first came out with the macro lenses that came with it for around £1400!.

Also, genuine question, but why would someone need to change a camera after 5 years if it is so good?.

[Howard]

Sorry to hijack this thread with my own query, but I'm after a compact digital camera with a decent flash (if there is such a thing).  My present camera is very deficient in this area, anything up to three feet away from the lens is OK, but anything beyond that is lost in the murk.  After getting used to the lightness of my present small camera, I resent having to carry my old SLR and flash unit around for the occasional indoor shot!

Edited to say:-  this is Emma, not Howard.  He didn't sign himself off last night!