Digital camera advice please

melbury

I want to buy my son a digital camera for Christmas - price range about £60-£90. Don't really want to spend more than that in case he loses it, as he is away at university.

Any advice on make, best place to look, etc would be appreciated.

Thanks.

andover_boy

I am buying the kodak M753 for my mum - its really easy to use, is point and click, big screen and lightweight - Good overall camera ... reguarly gets 9/10 scored.

£82 on amazon with a 2gb sd card (get the card with it as it will cost closer to £10 whereas it is only be £4 extra and you need it !!)

deanos

My advice never ever go on megapixels alone, unfortunately people think megapixels make a good camera they dont they are only part of the package , lens , shutter speed etc etc are just as important , stick with a well know make and you shouldnt go too far wrong, Casio, Canon, Sony, Kodak etc

startrekker

Good deal on a Sony Cybershot HERE courtesy of our friends on HUKD...
I had one until a friend broke it :mad: and it was a smashing camera for the money.............

[Deleted User]

When buying a cheap camera, make sure you get one that takes cheap memory cards (e.g. SD or compact flash) as Sony memory is more expensive and you can't use it in anything that's not sony.

Go for a good brand if you can; Canon, Olympus, Nikon, Fuji or Panasonic are all pretty good.

Keep it small - the easier it is to take your camera with you, the more likely you are to use it

Forget mega-pixels. As said before, they're a bit of a poor way of measuring a camera's performance. Anything over 4 should be fine for printing, I have a 5mp camera and the photos print out just like film photos.

Optical zoom - more is good. 3 or 4x optical zoom is handy. Ignore digital zoom - this won't make a photo look any better, just enlarge it.

Some of the cheapest 'good' cameras I could find were:

Nikon L3
Canon PSA460
Samsung D60
Nikon Coolpix L10
Pentax Optio E35
Fujifilm F470
Samsung S800
Samsung D85
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS60
Kodak M753
Casio EX-Z75

I could go on and on.. try using this link to find current offers. I think the casio would be your best choice - it's very slim, rechargeable battery, anti-shake and good reviews. Your son would like this camera and it's a good price on amazon

deanos

That Casio is a very good buy, im running a Canon Z750 now and its very good so easy to use and great pictures.

I would snap it up before it sells out.

melbury

Thank you all for your very useful posts - will spend some time looking at the cameras you suggest. Interesting about the megapixels, I always thought that the higher the better.

What has happened to the Thanks button on the posts, mine have disappeared, so I can't thank people individually.

davetrousers

Casios have great battery life as well. I have got the EX Z40 and the EX Z1200

xxxdarlingxxx

I have a Canon Powershot 430 it was £90 last year but down to £50 - £60 now. Really easy to use and good piccys and videos.

xadoc

anything you're looking at buying, check out reviews on megapixel.net or devesdigicams.com

They're both really good review sites and they perform a range of test photos (colour, black and white complex composition, macro (close up), outside shot, zoom shot, night shot) in different conditions so you can compare the same photos taken with different cameras, which is really handy.

As with an old film camera - the lens is one of the most important things - you're safer if you go for a name as they'll likely incorporate a good lens.

Next don't forget to find out how long it takes to actually take a photo and refresh for the next, try them out if possible - there's nothing more frustrating that taking a shot of something moving, only to discover it's out of frame because of the delay between pressing the button and processing the shot... especially when the camera is so slow to get ready for the next shot that the subject has long gone!

My recommendation - get a camera which takes AA batteries as standard - very handy if your son ever goes travelling as they can be purchased anywhere in the world, so he'd be fine even he can't plug in and charge up, and you can get pretty decent rechargables these days (2000+ mAh minimum is my suggestion)

I'd also try to think about what he might use it for; would a video mode be useful; is he likely to want to photograph things moving quickly - e.g. sports; is he a keen naturalist, so would a good macro mode be worthwhile?

Unfortunately each camera has its pros and cons - you have to trade off functions for size and weight - so which do you value more - portability or gizmos?

It's never simple picking a camera!

Fortyfoot

I have had the Olympus mini mju for a few years now. Superb, fits in your pocket. There is a later model than those shown in the link, but the 4mp is fine, I have used both. £30 to £40 on Ebay. Was over £200.

Fortyfoot