Digital Camera help please

susanmc

I am going to buy a digital camera for christmas (well my fiance's buying one for me) and I'm looking for a bit of advice. Sorry if it's long winded but to say I'm a digital camera novice would be being polite.

We don't have much money and don't want to spend any more than £100 absolute maximum.

I want to be able to print up to 8x10 prints and have been told to get a minimum of 3.0 pixels. Some only have digital zoom and some also have optical zoom. What's the difference? Is it worth paying more for optical zoom and is it worth paying extra for a known brand? I've saw one somewhere (can't remember where) made by Vivitar but I've never heard of them.

Also they all seem to come with 16mb memory. What exactly does this mean? How many photos would it store?

I have picture it software in my pc. Is this compatible for all cameras or are they all different?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

steeev

theres some good tips on buying a digital camera here:
http://www.cnet.com/4520-10142_1-5546968-4.html?tag=10

optical zoom is much better than digital zoom, and is definitely worth paying more for. For an explanation of the difference between digital and optical zoom, see here:
http://www.photoxels.com/article_zoom.html

and yes any photo/image editing software should be compatible with any digital camera.

hth,

steeev

EvilMonkey

First things first.

With a 3MP camera IGNORE DIGITAL ZOOM!!!!

Sorry for shouting but its rather important. digital zoom crops the picture in the camera, the resulting effect is that you get a lower resolution picture (its not exact, but basically if you digital zoom in x 2 you loose half your pixels....)

As you're wanting to print at 8x10 (inches I assume) this would seriously affect your prints as 3MP is on the edge for printing this big. At the recommmended print settings for a good quality print a 3MP cam should print no more than 5x7. It should produce an 8x10 print but you may notice some "digital" type bits of the picture in some scenarios (shouldn't be to bad in most cases)

So if you want zoom, optical zoom is a must....

At this level I'd be looking at something like this:-

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/SpecPage.html?NOV-CCSP41

Its a no-brand cam, but at the price you're looking at its that or a refurb or second hand (both of which are viable alternatives).

The novatech ones 4MP so fine resolution wise and has a 2x optical zoom. Apparently its not a bad basic cam, all for £90!

2 things to note

- The AA batteries supplied will not last long. Buy a set of decent NiMH rechargeables and a charger (around £10-15).

- It doesn't come with any memory, but you can pick up a cheap compact flash memory card on the same site (128MB should be plenty and costs £14).

Both of these might be provided by other relatives as a pressie?

On the memory / pictures front its always hard to say as cameras have settings to compress pictures etc. research into specific camera's should tell you how many pictures you can fit on cards. From memory a 3MP camera at its highest quality settings should fit about 16 pics on a 16 MB card.

Lastly, I've not heard of "picture it", but I'd not worry. Almost every camera comes with software to play with your images. The novatech one above comes with Adobe Photoshop LE (very good I'm told). Even if it doesn't there are a number of excellent free apps out there. (Irfanview for the simple stuff, up to GIMP for the full on freebie Photoshop replacement).

Post or drop me a message if you'd like any more info?

Good luck

Luke

EvilMonkey

cor blimey that was a long post, sorry for going on a bit! ;D

alictait

Argos are doing a half price 5 million mega pixel polaroid camera for £99.00 just now in their sale - looks quite good but no Zoom !!!

Manchester_Lucy

I found this bundle on Amazon which includes a printer.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000CH856/qid%3D1100252762/202-0074280-5456622

I'm not that technically minded but I noticed that the same bundle was £199 at Boots

susanmc

Evil Monkey

Thanks for all the advice. Had a look at the Novatech one and looks just like what I'm looking for. It has 2x digital zoom and 3x optical zoom. It says requires CF card to function. Is this the memory where photos are stored or is that something extra I would need to buy? There's a 256mb compact flash RAM card for £20.50 and a 128mb for £13.99.

Thanks again

EvilMonkey

The CF (Compact Flash) card is indeed the memory, most camera's have removeable memory cards or sticks and this ones no different.

It's hard to be exact as the image sizes do vary from picture to picture but the novatech's pictures should be roughly 1 1/2 MB's big. So its up to you, with a 128MB card you should fit on 80-90 pictures at the camera's highest quality setting. Obviously twice that for the 256MB card. The compact flash cards are VERY common, so if you're ever on holiday and need to buy another one you can normally find one at a half decent camera shop...

Don't forget batteries, digi-cams are famous for eating power! a normal set of duracell batteries won't last for any time at all. You do need to invest in a set of rechargeable ones, but again, I've seen them in places like woolies now, so they're everyewhere too!

I did see this cam on Jessops (probably the most well known camera shop chain in the UK)

http://!!!!!!.com/6be5m

Not sure there's that much thats better about it to be honest? (and it does look a bit plastic?) But, its there for a comparison?

Luke

bleughbleugh

Dont just go by number of megapixels,

there are some REALLY bad 5 megapixel cameras out there,

it also has to do with lens optics too!

i'm still using my 4 year old olympus C920 Zoom, it's a 1.3 megapixel beast, but the pictures it takes, due to the advanced glass optics (unusual at the time) easily beat a lot of 2-3 megapixel cameras i've seen,

and the only thing thats convinced me i need to upgrade is seeing the images my brothers C765UZ (4 Megapixel, 10x zoom) produces!

look for cameras
when you have some model numbers that you like
look for that model number + review in google
(i.e. fuji 730 review)

dpreview.com
and
stevesdigicams

are two excellent places for reviews

also megapixel (either .net or .com)

EvilMonkey

bleugh,

I don't disagree about lenses being important, but for under £100 for 8 x 10 prints, your options are a little limited. 1.3MP would not print to 8x10 whatever the optics. (I'd qualify that by saying it would take a good bit of software and a well versed operator to print that size from that resolution)

Neither DPReview or steves-digicams cover this kind of no-name camera. That said you might try a post in the forums of DPReview about the no-name cams, keep in mind if you do though, that you'll get a LOT of posts puting it down. Ask it the other way though (IE name a camera of these specs for under £100) and you'll get less replies.... Post in DPreview if you want to know about quality optics, functionality etc. Post here for the cheap stuff!

Hintza

Other places to look for good value are

Canon Outlet on Ebay (I have bought 2 camcorders and 1 camera ...without a problem although some seem to have.

The IxusII is a good camera around your budgetish...

http://www.fujifilm.co.uk/technical/refurb/shop.php this a great site.


http://www.morgan-auction.co.uk/

I have supplied most of my family with cameras from these sites this year. You just have to keep checking.

But you should be able to pick up a quality camera (usually refurb runout model) at a good price.

I usually so a chart to compare cameras on excel and then take review ratings etc and add my own where I feel its important. A little geeky but it cuts through the crap and you are sometimes surprised by the results.



Also Pixmania are good...based in France...are worth a look.