cameras

liannee22

hiya i wondered if any one could recomend a good digital camera, i have £200 to spend in comet and i want a really good one ive just had a baby and im obsessed with taking pictures!!! ive mainly had the sony cybershot cameras in the past as i like there rechargable lithium batterys and there pocket size so ideal for a night out but now im a mummy thats not so relevant now!!!

anyway rambling over and advice will be greatly recieved x x x

BexTech

Canon make great cameras.

liannee22

ok great ill have a look at them thanks x

Marty999

I have an old Canon Ixus II which is credit card size (but thicker!) so it's nice and compact. I take lots of pics of our children and like to get in close, so I think a wide angle lens is really helpful. Lens quality is really important, lots of mega pixels not so important. If I had £200 to spend I would take a serious look at the Panasoic Lumix range, like this one. It has a wide angle Leica lens and a lithium-ion battery which as you say is really important too. I would also suggest getting a camera which can record movies with sound, as they can't all do that.

foreversomeday

I love the fujifilm finepix S5700, it is under £200 and has a really big optical zoom - which will be great in a few years when you want to take pics of your LO and they are playing without them noticing (as young children tend to either pose or get camera shy!)

It also takes SD and XD memory cards, and has an auto setting (for "point and shoot") as well as more complicated settings if you want to get creative. It's sturdy and easy to hold with one hand too.

Viper_7

Save up and get a DSLR much much much better than these little digital compak cameras.

Sony Alpha is around £400 and is a great all rounder.

They are a little bulkier but well worth it. The picture quality is professional.
Get 20X optical zoom easy. Good 2000+ 10MP+ photo's per memory card.
Fully automatic, or fully manual.
Battery life is a good 800 Photos.

Compare them against the little compac toys and you know it makes sense

Vipes

foreversomeday

It doesn't make sense to spend more money on a product with features you will never use.

If you are interested in photography, a DSLR is a fantastic investment, but for the average user who wants to take photos of their family and friends, it is a waste of money in my opinion. (Apologies to the OP if you are genuinely interested in photography, but I get the impression from your post that you don't want something that complicated.)

That's why I suggested the fujifilm - it has more advanced options in case you want to experiment, and makes a very good first foray into manual photography, but is also simple enough for a child to use if you don't want to.

Viper_7

foreversomeday wrote: »

It doesn't make sense to spend more money on a product with features you will never use.

but then you end up purchasing another product when you do want to use such features, costing you more and costing waste.

It's not much more to invest in a DSLR.

Just like saving a little to buy that 36 inch HD TV rather than the 32 inch SD TV.

As you say though, it does depend on what you want to use the product for, but don't comprise on price if you can wait a little and pay a little more to get a much better product.

Vipes

Marty_J

The Nikon D40 is £270 from Amazon, and Nikon have a £30 mail-in cashback offer at the minute. It's not really that much more expensive than a decent point and shoot, and it does a great job in auto mode until you're ready to get more advanced with it.

tradetime

Great little camera good quality.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0012ZEDV4/ref=amb_link_macro_67623865
With the change you can buy yourself a decent size memory card and a case for it.
Print the page off, go along to comet, see if they have one, play with it handle it, then see what sort of deal they will do you if they are more expensive.
Comet have them at £169.99

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/search.do?searchTerm=Canon%20IXUS%2080%20IS%20Digital%20Camera&categoryId=615&searchType=all&n=5000615%204294966861&searchType=all#I
I assume you have some sort of vouchers / credit to spend only in Comet, if you go for this camera, don't tell them that, look for the camera play with it, if you like it lead them on so they can see the sale, then pull out the print off and ask if it's the same camera, when they say it is point out the price, they should do a deal, if and when they agree a price then and only then show them whatever credit coupons that commit you to buy in Comet, they can hardly go back on the deal then.

mean_momma

Marty999 wrote: »

I have an old Canon Ixus II . If I had £200 to spend I would take a serious look at the Panasoic Lumix range, like this one. It has a wide angle Leica lens and a lithium-ion battery which as you say is really important too.


I just had to choose between the Canon Ixus 860IS and the Panasonic Lumix, as they both have wide angle lenses. The Panasonic has more megapixels, but the Canon seemed to be better rated by staff, even though it was cheaper. They reckoned that the extra megapixels bring on extra issues. The Canon has come down in price (got mine for £199, but unfortunately not at Comet). The Panasonic was also available at £199.

One thing to look out for is whether there is a good instruction manual. Only the basic one comes with the Canon. For more detailed information, you have to look at the CD or print a huge amount of pages yourself.

Here is a very useful link to a site that gives video demos and reviews of the various cameras: [URL="mhtml:!!6CFAFCC3-A3E3-4CAA-B4C7-C7A08CD5B42F}mid://00000007/!x-usc:http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panasonic_Lumix_DMC-FX35_FX36/video_review.shtml"]http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panasonic_Lumix_DMC-FX35_FX36/video_review.shtml[/URL]