Digital Camera Help

[steve_rob]

Thought I'd pick the brains of everyone on here to see if anyone has any digital camera recommendations.

I've only ever owned a 35mm, so this field is totally new to me, but I've wanted one for ages and thought as I've got a trip coming up (and with it, a visit to the duty free Dixons!) now was the best time.

The only thing the camera MUST have is an optical zoom of at LEAST x6. The regular camera I've got at the moment has a superb zoom and I'm loathed to give that up - I tried a friend's digi camera that had a x3 zoom and I came away very disappointed by it.

Obviously value for money, picture quality, ease of use etc. will come in to play, but I'm hoping you lot will help me out with that and steer me in the right direction!

 

[lewisturek]

Hi Steve,


I am pretty much in the same boat as you. However last week I ordered a FUJIFILM FINEPIX S304 from Currys online. The camera came to £279 and I also paid £79 for a 5 (FIVE!) year warranty including accidental damage .

Before buying it, I called up Dixons at Heathrow duty free and they were doing it for £299. The normal high street dixons price is £329.

Here's a link for camera details:


http://www.fujifilm.co.uk/FUJIDC/S304/index.html


(3.2 Megapixels, 6x Optical Zoom, records movies as well....)


I get the camera tomorrow , and i'll post my thought sand comments about it then.

Good luck!

Lewis

 

[Goofyish]

Olympus have digital cameras with 10x optical zoom lenses.

Model numbers are:

C-720 UZ (2.95MPixel) - £269
C740 UZ (3.14MPixel) - £349
C750 UZ (3.9Mpixel) - £398

Check out this site for the specs and test results:

http://www.dpreview.com/

I'm sure you know this already, but ignore the digital zoom on cameras

 

[Claire L]

Steve_rob
Having looked at duty free prices at the airport to be honest it is often cheaper to buy on the internet at such places as Dixons, Comet and Empiredirect to name a few. At least if you get the camera a little while before you go away you can experiment and get used to it.
Claire

 

[Goofyish]

Also, if you buy the camera from the duty free shop on the way out and then bring it back into the country, it counts against your £145 duty free allowance!

 

[Shugmac]

Hi Steve_rob


I don't know much about the cameras but DH priced about for his and he found this place to be good and not bad on price www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk they delivered quick and the camera came with free bag, little tripod & memory card they have a lot of reviews for all different cameras. DH wanted his before we go so he could have lots of playtime with it and find out all what it does.

 

[steve_rob]

Thanks for the hints so far guys.

Lewisturek - if you could let me know about the Fuji, that would be great. It was actually one of those on my list to look at, but I've been struggling to find any decent reviews on the net (most sites I've found seem to give EVERY camera four / five stars and surely that's not right) so if I can get your perspective of a new user, like I'm going to be, then that will really help.

Goofyfish - I did know about digital zoom not being worth the paper it's printed on! However, I didn't know Olympus did 10x cameras, so thanks for that - I'll add them to my list.

 

[lewisturek]

It arrived yesterday


So far, so good. I'm very pleased with it, the picture quality is excellent and the zoom is amazing.

Its smaller than I imagined ot would be, but it fits very comfortably into the hand. The shoulder strap is a bit cr*p, but then I didin't buy the camera for the strap quality!

The functions are straight-forward and easy to use & there aren't 1000's of dials and buttons, so learning to use the camera should be easy (in theory, at least!).

The software that is supplied with the camera seems to be good, but I haven't really had a chance to play with it properly yet.


All in all, I'm very pleased with it! 9 out of 10 (bl**dy camera strap!!!)


Hope that helps



Lewis

 

[Muppet]

I have no idea of all the blurb but I have a Sony Fx77 that is bluetooth and is very good.

Got it for £320 with an additional 128 mb memorystick and carrycase.

 

[Zigatoh]

A quick note for those on a bit of a budget (not too tight though), and cos I'm well happy with the one I got...

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NOV-CCSP33
- under £100 for a 3.3megapixel (goes up to 2000+by1500+) with flash, is missing the optical zoom but a) that's why it's cheap, and b) pictures that size you can do your own 'zooming' in something like photoshop and it'll still look fine as long as you don't insist on A3 size printouts...

Only has 16MB onboard but another 50 odd £ will get you a 512MB secure digital card which will hold approx 500pics at a very good resolution (think it was similar to 1600*1200).

And it has all the necessary battery saving options, you can turn the screen off and set the standby time how you wish.

oh and it's a piece of cake to use, simple menu systems, point and click, then just plug it into a USB port and windows 2000 or XP will pick it up as an extra drive and you can drag and drop or cut and paste from there to your hearts delight....

AND you can do video clips, with sound...

Anything else?

(hint2 - the same site also does 40 AA batteries for £8.99 -
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NOV-AA40 )