what to look for in a digital camera?

Syman

without going over other points made.

how big, if any are the photos going to be printed. anything up to A4 will look ok with a 3 to 5MP camera, having just got a new camera my son and daughter now have the old one, which is a 3.1MP KODAK easyshare and neither of them have problems with the quality of the pics they take and print.

An optical zoom is a must, digital zooms are a gimmick and are not much cop on their own.

superjaggybunnet

I have a Nikon coolpix 4100 which is a great camera and you should be able to get one now for around £50.

4 megapixel is more than enough. Put a 512 mb SD card in it and she will be able to take 100's of pictures of your feet. You can get a 512 mb card for peanuts.

Get recharagable batteries though for sure or you will be shelling out more for batteries than you ever did getting films developed.

Dukie_Boy

HI
I think the one on sale at ALDI on March 15th
it has 6 megapixels , 2.4tft ,16 mb internal memory, 512mb sd card
3x optical zoom and 4xdigital zoom
plus all the software , charger , batteries, strap, case,
take a look on their web page https://www.aldi.co.uk

Looks ideal for a young budding photographer

Dukie Boy

Dukie_Boy

Sorry didn't mention the price £69-99

Dukie Boy

nullogik

Ignore digital zoom. The one you should be looking for is 'optical zoom' and none of this software trickery which is what digital zoom really is.

Look for what type of memory card it takes. SD/MMC cameras are the best, as the prices for these cards are more competitive (cheaper) than XD or Sony Memorystick and are easier to get hold of too.

ormus

to be really honest, 1 or 2 MP would be ok for a childrens camera. esp if the photos are mainly for the web/puter etc..
lens quality is far more important.

Helix

If you can find a Superdrug near you with stock this is a good buy.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=396630

Managed to get one yesterday its a brilliant camera for the money.

crox

One thing with sd, they are being replaced with sdhc. In itself this won't be an issue for a while, so don't fret, but remember that a sdhc card won't work in a sd device even though a sdhc device can take sd cards.

happychikadee

Thankyou to everyone for all your help. I was under the illusion that it was all about mega pixels until I read these replies! My daughter just likes taking photo's for her memory box and for fun and I like the fact of a digital camera and not having to pay for them to be printed only to find they are pointless! She is only 9 so I don't want to pay a fortune as there will be nothing left to buy her when she hits her teens if she gets all the best gear now like so many kids these days. God now I sound like my mother!!!!!!

Thankyou again to everyone for your help xx

coolagarry

Something not mentioned above but which I think is very important for kids is the size and brightness of the lcd screen. Kids get most of their fun by taking pics and showing them to their friends instantly. Quite often they never actually get round to uploading them. I would certainly not go below 2.5 and go for 3 if possible. This is an example of a 2.5 for less than £100

http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/digital-camera-selector-2.cfm?camera=Olympus%20FE-170&brand=Olympus&name=FE-170

If you feed your requirements into here
http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/digital-camera-selector.cfm
It will give you some ideas.