Digital Camera

Greensprout

I'm currently looking for to buy a digital camera.

Getting confused with a lot of the jargon.

Can someone tell me what the difference is between an 'Optical Zoom' and a 'Digital Zoom'.

Any other help would be much appreciated.
I'm looking to spend around £200 max.

Any recommendations?

crossleydd42

Digital zoom is mucking about with pixels and not much use unless your camera is about 8mp. Optical (not Digital - thx Kentish!) zoom is related to the lens moving in and out like ordinary cameras. My tip re buying them is to stick with makes which specialise in photography, like Canon, Fuji and not ones like HP and Samsung. To be fair, the latter make superb mobile phones these days!

Kentish

crossleydd42 wrote:

Digital zoom is related to the lens moving in and out like ordinary cameras.

Crossleydd42 meant optical zoom in the above sentence. Digital zoom is a total waste of time - it's like selecting a small part of your photo on a computer and enlarging that small part - you just get larger visible pixels...

You didn't mention whether you want a compact point-and-shoot or a digital SLR - but I suspect you want the former. If so, the best compact camera I've played with recently is the Canon Ixus 30 - really small and thin and simple to use. You can't find Ixus 30's anymore so go for the Ixus 50 which you can find for £164 + £8 p&p here:

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/86205/art/canon/digital-ixus-50.html

5 megapixels, 3x optical zoom, 2" LCD, takes movies as well...

Note that you do pay a premium price for the ultra-slim form-factor though - if you weren't fussed by the size then you can get a perfectly adequate Canon A430 for £106.40 + £8 p&p here:

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/228728/art/canon/powershot-a430-blue.html

I don't know if these are the cheapest suppliers so do shop around first.

One other small note: as with digital zoom, don't be seduced by the number of megapixels. If all you want to do is print 6x4 photos then 2 megapixels are enough. 5 megapixel photos take up a lot of space but is necessary if you want to make enlargements. 8 megapixels: total overkill for the average happy snapper - IMHO...

competitionscafe

I am confused by all the ixus's! I know the ixus 40 got good reviews a while back, then it was replaced by the ixus 50 - has this now been replaced by the Canon IXUS 60 - and what is the difference between the ixus 60 and ixus 65? (apart from the bigger lcd/no old style viewfinder on the latter, oh and £33 more - I actually prefer a viewfinder especailly in bright sunlight when you can't even see the lcd)