Digital Cameras

hamish222

Hi

I am also looking for some advise. I am looking to buy a compact camera for niece 18th. I thought either Sony Cyber Shot or the Panasonic Lumix. Have been looking for something over 10mp and prepared to spend up to 200. It needs to be neat and compact and fairly simple to use. Anybody any advise what best to go for? Or if anything better.

Thanks

Stompa

hamish222 wrote: »

I thought either Sony Cyber Shot or the Panasonic Lumix.

I've got a Panasonic Lumix TZ1. The newer models are probably a bit better, but they tend to produce noisy pictures in low-light (e.g. indoors). Other than that, a great camera.

Marty_J

hamish222 wrote: »

Hi

I am also looking for some advise. I am looking to buy a compact camera for niece 18th. I thought either Sony Cyber Shot or the Panasonic Lumix. Have been looking for something over 10mp and prepared to spend up to 200. It needs to be neat and compact and fairly simple to use. Anybody any advise what best to go for? Or if anything better.

Thanks

Why do you need something over 10mp?

Unless she's going to be doing enormous prints or heavily cropping photos, she'll just be getting photos with much larger file-sizes which take longer to transfer and take up more space, and they might very well be a lot noisier too.

They certainly won't be better quality just because they have more pixels.

Marty999

Marty_J wrote: »

Why do you need something over 10mp?

Unless she's going to be doing enormous prints or heavily cropping photos, she'll just be getting photos with much larger file-sizes which take longer to transfer and take up more space, and they might very well be a lot noisier too.

They certainly won't be better quality just because they have more pixels.

Yes I am still using my Canon Ixus II which is 5 years old. It's only 3.2 mega pixels but that is fine for prints up to A4 in size. Don't get misled into thinking you have to have lots of mega pixels to get a good print, far better to spend the money on a camera with a good lens.

Party_Animal

There's a lot of interest in this thread. No need for sarcasm, though I agree that people should try and be a bit more specific about their needs. I've checked all the above links as the missus wants a new camera too. I'm still not sure so I'd like to hear from anyone's own experience. She wants a compact digital camera. We take two on holiday. I have a good digital SLR which I use during the day for landscapes, action, wild life etc. My wife has a compact one which she keeps in her bag and uses mainly for close up stuff, portraits, but critically, she uses it at night when we're out in false or dim light. So requirements for her are night mode, anti redeye, close up for flowers etc. She'd like as much optical zoom as she can afford. She won't be blowing the piccies up more than A4 so no need for mega pixels. Given a budget of £100 what would you recommend.

hamish222

Thanks for the advise about cameras. I thought that you needed to have lots mega pixels as each new camera that comes on market will have more and more. So I presumed that it was due to them getting better. Any ones she will print will be normal size and most wont get printed probably end up on myspace or something. Does need to be compact though so she can fit in her bag. I am a bit thick when it comes to techie things I am afraid. If someone tells me this is the most expensive and has all these great features (even though I dont know what they do ) then I usually think oh better get that then.

converse

The Ixus cameras are fine for snap shots, but the small lenses, lead to soft shots if you are critical, but they are super tiny and portable, the PowerShots are much better "larger compact" cameras, especially the G series.

Have a look at the links iSofa provided in the 3rd post, despite the ridiculous reply from the OP, the advice is sound and useful, reading comparative reviews gives a better understanding of the features than one person saying they like one brand/camera because they own it.

£100 is quite a limited budget, up it a bit more say £150+ and you'll open up the field to a better compact.

I imagine someone might want to replace a PowerShot with an Ixus for portability, and the new ones will beat the older PowerShots too, but new model compared with new model, obviously the PS will be better.

daveyjp

Re cost - I'm just looking to replace my old camera.

Three price levels appear to be targetted.

Up to £100 will get you something very basic,
Up to £150 will get you something slightly better, slightly better lens, better resolution, but not 50% better than a £100 camera
£200 will get you an excellent 'bridge' camera with lots of features and capabilities - the extra £50 is well spent.

Once you get to £300+ you are in digital SLR territory.

timbim_2

For sub £100, you can get a Fuji S5700, not utterly compact, but brilliant lens and shutter lag, with a good sensor to boot.

AlfieBurton17

You can also consider Fujifilm Finepix S5800..It has 10x optical zoom and is of 8 mega pixel. You can get it for around £100. Though it is not that compact but has the best zoom in this range..