5 megapixel digital camera £48 at Tesco

richiethekid

Apologies if this has been posted before, but if it has I couldn't find it.

In my local Tesco last night, I spotted a 5 megapixel digital camera for just under £48. Comes with a Secure Digital memory card, but it wasn't a make I recognised. I'm considering buying one to replace my aging APS camera. I don't have a PC at home but I'm interested in the idea of choosing which pictures to print and paying 10-20p per picture rather than taking pot luck and paying £6-7 to develop a roll of film with only a few decent pictures on it.

Anyone have any comments/suggestions?

DazzaMc

I saw that last night too. I think it was reduced in my tesco though?

Only by about a fiver. If the RRP for a 5 megapixel camera is £50 then beware!

I wouldn't bother. But that's perhaps me just being cynical

Poppycat

I don't think it coems with optical zoom, nearly all cameras at the price range don't. I much rather have aless meg pixel camera with optical zoom any day than one with a higher mega pixel but only digital zoom. Pay a little more and get a better camera.

amc1

Can someone please remind me again what's the optical zoom for (non-techy answers only please) ?

richiethekid

My existing camera doesn't have a zoom, so I doubt not having an optical zoom would be much of a problem.

Poppycat

Optical zoom is when the camera use optics (which cost more hence cheapo cameras normally only have digital zoom) to zoom into a object. Where as digital zoom uses the ptocessor to manipulate a image via software. Similar to loading up a jpeg into a image manipulation program ie say Paint shop pro and using the zoom facility.

If you want to take photos close range not a problem, but when you further away digital zoom is pretty well useless.

eiamhere69

Optical zoom zooms in on your intended area without losing any quality in the picture (a bit like binoculars). Digital zoom uses the sensors to enhance the image, this can degrade the quality. Optical is better than digital, but I'm not sure how much that is by (ie. how much you must enlarge the picture by for it to become more noticable).

Poppycat

optical zoom

The use of lenses to change the focal length of a digital or analog camera. Analog cameras have only optical zoom, while digital cameras have both optical and digital. The digital zoom is an interpolated resolution that is computed by software in the telephoto side of the zoom. Depending on subject matter, the interpolated results can be quite acceptable or mediocre.

In general, the higher the optical zoom, the better. An optical zoom of 10x or more is called a "superzoom" lens. Note that many cameras state "10x zoom," but that does not signify optical only. The optical might be 3x with the additional 7x computed by software (digital zoom). See digital camera.

Digital zoom

Digital zoom is a method of zooming on a digital camera either by increasing the size of the pixels in the image or by interpolating between them. The image doesn't physically get any closer and no extra information is collected, as the optics on the camera stay in place.

The process on some cameras is equivalent to cropping the image: Only data from the centre of the available image is stored, meaning the resolution or megapixel rating of the photograph is reduced, with a corresponding decrease in file size. The resulting image is identical to a photograph taken with no zoom, except that the unwanted edges of the image are discarded.

Digital zoom is closely related and works similar to how zooming works in software such as Adobe Photoshop. Digital zoom can reduce the quality of images significantly, and as such, is not recommended if the picture is destined to be printed out. Most digital cameras on the market today carry this feature and some rely entirely on this zooming technique and do not have any optical zoom capabilities.

chrissiesurfergirl123

Noticed a 5 mega pixel digital camera in my local Tesco today- said reduced to 39.97 from 59.97. Sorry didnt pay any attention to the spec