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Original poster

digital camera recommendations please

40 replies

hercules · 23/02/2004 13:54

I have got to spend £1500 by May (not my own money ) and wanted to use £200-£400 on a digital camera.

Any suggestions?

OP posts:
Galaxy · 23/02/2004 14:10

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Galaxy · 23/02/2004 14:16

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Clayhead · 23/02/2004 14:18

Just got a Canon Ixus Digital 400 and it's great. They're £300 on Amazon at the moment. It's excellent, it does various sizes of pictures (as in quality) and also 3 minute movies!! It's tiny to carry round too and has a lead so that you can show the pictures/movies on the TV, like a slide show.

HTH

twiglett · 23/02/2004 14:18

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Original poster
hercules · 23/02/2004 14:21

Thanks Galaxy, certainly looks v nice

OP posts:
GeorginaA · 23/02/2004 14:21

I'm very pleased with the Canon Ixus we got for Christmas. (We actually got the model below this because our budget was slightly smaller). Fantasticly light weight, compact. Good automatic mode, but flexible manual mode if you know a bit more about photography. Customer reviews always seem to be good.

A friend of mine has just bought himself the Sony Cybershot DSCV1 and raves about it. It retails around £350. His review and comments can be found here .

Original poster
hercules · 23/02/2004 14:23

Thanks to all!!!!

OP posts:
BearintheBigBlueHous · 23/02/2004 14:23

All digital cameras have a delay between you shooting and the picture being taken, especially when you're using the flash. Not good when you're trying to catch a lively impish toddler. Nikons are particularly bad. We plumped for a Canon Ixus which as well as being really small and easy to use had the shortest delay. It takes really good pictures too. HTH

pollingfold · 23/02/2004 14:42

We just got a Fuji Finepix n700 ? £300 (6mega pixels) which is has got lots of rave reviews in the press recently. We searched around for a long time and our deciding factor was shutter lag, although agree that the icus also is written up well. the Fuji lag is very small, on the sony the lag was crap and the canon ixus inbetween. The fuji also gives you some level of control over the type of pictures you take, sports mode, portraits.

Costwise, bear in mind the memory cards. Most cameras seem to come with 16 or 32mb of memory. This will store about 30 pictures in the worst quality mode. You should think about buying a much bigger memory card 128mb (£80-100) - which will store 170 ish photos in the best quality, which means you don't have to constantly down load the pictures to your computer.

GenT · 23/02/2004 15:01

go for one with 3 mega pixels or more for starters, then you won't have grainy enlarged pics

we got a brilliant one on ebay for £100 from Germany

with that budget you have a good selection, sorry I don't know which, my dh selected it, I just browsed for 3 or more pixels

musica · 23/02/2004 15:09

Just to be confusing, dh says that you can't just go on the number of pixels, there are good and bad pixels. Don't ask me why - but might be worth investigating this. We've got a Canon G5 which is really good - very detailed pictures. You can zoom right in before they start getting pixelly.

tamum · 23/02/2004 15:18

There are some really good review websites that are worth checking out once you've got some idea of what you want (bit overwhelming otherwise!)

Steve's Digicams
DPreview
Digital Camera Resource

Completely agree about shutter lag on Nikons; mine (Coolpix 880) also has very unrealistic/grey skintones when I use flash. It's really worth looking into in some detail, IMO, as there are just so many variables with digital cameras.

Hulababy · 23/02/2004 15:19

We have a Canon Ixus and love it. Simple to use and great quality. Software which comes with it is good too.

kiwisbird · 23/02/2004 15:33

have got fujifilm F700
brilliant, takes perfect pics, any simpleton can use it - obviously if I can...
xx J

Tinker · 23/02/2004 15:35

So is the one in Superdrug for £12.99 not very good then?

tamum · 23/02/2004 15:42

Have a look on the websites I listed Tinker, I'm sure it will have been reviewed extensively

Tinker · 23/02/2004 15:44

tamum - I'm still on Windows 95 - the whole digital camera phenonemon has passed me by...

Tinker · 23/02/2004 15:45

oh dear, typo there.

crystaltips · 23/02/2004 15:47

This is the one I have
Kodak DX4330

It's a great point and press digital camera.

They say that you need a docking station to charge up the camer - rubbish - just get a supply of rechargable batteries ... it's a lot cheaper.

I would advise you get a memory card - I got one on amazon 64MB - which stores about 100 photos.

And when you want the photos developed - go here photobox
They allow you to store 100MB of photos free! You can share your phtots with others, and developed photos are sent next day delivery.

HTH

jampot · 23/02/2004 15:55

We've just bought Olympus Mju 300 over the internet from a company called (I think) Electronic Express or similar in Altrincham. Beat all other deals on this camera by about £50.

tamum · 23/02/2004 16:01

Tinker, tell me about it- I struggled for 2 years with Win95 and a digital camera, it used to take about 20 minutes per picture to transfer, and then I could only store about 2 pics on my hard drive before the whole system collapsed. Definitely recommend WinXP for digital camera users!

udar · 23/02/2004 16:55

We've got an Olympus C750 which we bought due to the fact that it has a 10x optical zoom which gives us that much more flexibility with photos. It also has all the types of photo settings that an SLR has but is quite compact (not quite a fit in the pocket camera though).
The reviews are in those links sent through earlier.

slug · 23/02/2004 21:48

I've got the Nikon Coolpix, which got the best buy from Which magazine.

SueW · 23/02/2004 23:53

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at OP's request.

Original poster
hercules · 24/02/2004 09:19

Bloomin eckers!
Thanks everyone, nearly managed to look all the links up from your exellent advice, just need to discuss with dh.

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