What Digital Camera Should I Buy?

[loz_the_guru]

Im looking to upgrade my old sony digicam, and was wondering if people have any good/bad experiences or tips for me? Currently its looking like a mju mini by olympus, although I also like the canon ixus range, as I had one back in the APS days and like the designs of several current models. So, anyone got any first hand experience, or know of a decent reviews site?

Basically im looking for a small, reasonable image quality camera, with some form of optical zoom, and a relatively quick start up time. If anyone can better the mju mini, ill hug them.

All that noise, and all that sound.

 

[spray]

i have a canon ixus i, the very small ones, and its totally awesome.

no optical zoom but tbh you can always just walk to something if you want it to be bigger.

a friend of mine at uni has the mju, very nice camera as well. must say i prefer my little black number though

 

[loz_the_guru]

The ixus I is nice, but an optical zoom really is a must. Sometimes you cant get closer, and its much easier to cut crap out you dont want in a photo with a zoom.

 

[Apeiron]

Kodak, get a camera and printer combo theres some rock bottom prices around at the moment and you get amazing photos with it.
I have a 5 mega pixel one and with the printer I can even print images off my computer to it. like some cas art work I done

 

[triksR4rabits]

I highly reccommend the Casio Exilim EX-Z55 or EX-Z750 Digital Camera. Quality.
Also cnet.com has some good reviews. They are tough scorers as well

 

[mattmagoo]

BIG DOWNSIDE TO MJU

shutter lag

this is the biggest downside to my mju

although im not sure if it is the same with the mini

 

[I izda Boi inda Hood!]

Well, I am 'quite' happpy with my ixus 5megapixel. Occasionally it doesn't focus manually, but the pictures are lovely, and the build quality is superb!

But are you a CF man, or an SD? Personally I prefer CF cards. they never go corrupted on me, whereas I've buggered up so many SD cards....

 

[EvilDragon]

Ermm, first question:

Do you want to take good pictures with a good, changeable lens, where you adjust all your parametres manually or just press a button and have automatically taken a picture?

 

[c0ncept]

what do you want the camera for (professional photography work or just quick snaps?)? also how much are you looking to spend? I currently have a samsung digimax420 and although it doesn't have the option of extra lenses its a pretty good camera.

obviously if you have the money I'd recommend a digital SLR, but they the cheapest one I've found costs six hundred pounds

 

[loz_the_guru]

Its just for point and click, not proffesional use. im willing to pay around 150-250, but the main thing is it has to be small.

 

[meandu229]

i got the mju 410,, it is a realy good camera good enough to take great landscapes and small enough for pockets, its down falll is i take lots of party pictures like in the dark and time for a shot in the darks is about 1.5 seconds i assume it takes in the light first,, its a bit annoying but except that it does everything including movies with sound

 

[EvilDragon]

A nice, little, small camera is the Minolta dimage.
Take a look at it. No Macro though.

 

[lubidog]

Actually, I'm looking to buy my Mum a digocam for her Birthday (1st July-look forward to forwarding on to her all your best wishes then! And cheques )

So have any of you any experience with these little olympus cameras? She will just want a simple point and click (but with video playback- I use the 30 28(i think?)fps video rec on my ixus more more than my posh panasonic camcorder!)

My old camera was a olympus camadia 3meg or whatever. I liked it. so......

 

[BaDToaD]

I have a casio QVR-40 4.0 megapixel camera that I picked up from PC world for £100 refurbished. For that money it's a cracking little bit of kit. Sub 1 second statup time too.

Review here

Be sure to check out the sample pics. Not brilliant but for a ton you can't go wrong. I'm not sure if PC world still have them though.

EDIT: Its very small too.

 

[mattmagoo]

Head up on the whole megapixel front

you should also look at macro and the lense quality

i bought a 5 megapixel camera, but the lense is horroundous and things dont come out all that nice

 

[loz_the_guru]

cheers mattmagoo, what sort of thing should look for? what makes a good lens/macro?!?

 

[mattmagoo]

to get a feeling for the lense ask ig you can have a go

just take a pic and check it on the digital screen

if the colours are ok and vibrant the lens is good

the crappy one i got gives off a red tigne and everything look dull

comparing the preview screen of one pic on that cam with my mju is notceable

tbh, 3 megapixel is enough to egt you laid

theres is no point paying extra for a 5 or 7 mega pixel when you wont be able to tell the difference

i'd got for a high end 3 megapixel (cant think of any name atm), because the colours will just seem so much nicer

macro on the other hand is personally choice

the macro defines how close you can get to an object without it becoming blurry

its not so bad for snapshots, but was improtant for me because i use my camera for taking pictures of my college practical work

the mju has a very reasonable lense and gives some of the nicest picture i have seen, but the shutter lag (or whatever its called) can get a little frustrating

 

[lubidog]

to get a feeling for the lense ask ig you can have a go

just take a pic and check it on the digital screen

if the colours are ok and vibrant the lens is good

the crappy one i got gives off a red tigne and everything look dull

comparing the preview screen of one pic on that cam with my mju is notceable

tbh, 3 megapixel is enough to egt you laid

theres is no point paying extra for a 5 or 7 mega pixel when you wont be able to tell the difference

i'd got for a high end 3 megapixel (cant think of any name atm), because the colours will just seem so much nicer

macro on the other hand is personally choice

the macro defines how close you can get to an object without it becoming blurry

its not so bad for snapshots, but was improtant for me because i use my camera for taking pictures of my college practical work

the mju has a very reasonable lense and gives some of the nicest picture i have seen, but the shutter lag (or whatever its called) can get a little frustrating

​

Yep, unless you are making big prints you don't need the extra Megapixels. But I reckon you will miss macro (if you have a baby like me!!!! ). And a decent video player is good.

Most decent cams have these features nowadays, especially point and clickers!

 

[BaDToaD]

Most named brands will have a decent lens. My casio QVR-40 has a pentax len for example.
I've got a few hundred quids worth of Pentax SLR gear that sits in a cupboard since I bought the casio because:-
a ) The casio is so easy to carry about and
b ) it's versatile enough to cope with most situations. Apparently It'll produce nice prints upto 14 x 11. I can only do A4 on my printer which is probably true for most of us. It'll do 10 x 8 even if you're cropping large chunks of the picture.

Basically check out the reviews and the old maxim you get what you pay for is usually quite accurate with regard to cameras. As I said my Casio was £100 refurbished but at the time it was still £220 or more new and the quality shows in both the build and the results.

 

[Vimacs]

its important that you get a glass lens, not a plastik one, gives you much clearer imge, on good cams that should be writen down someware.