Recommend (yawn) me a Compact Camera (less than £300)
Recommend (yawn) me a Compact Camera (less than £300)
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Discussion

doosht

Original Poster:

200 posts

180 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
I know next to nothing about cameras. All i do know is that the Nikon D5100 i purchased whilst probably brilliant in other situations is simply not suitable for what i need.

I want a compact camera so i can photograph items using one hand as the other hand is holding something (ooo'err!!)
It Needs to be ....

  • Good in low light situations
  • Good at Macro shots as 99% of the shots are close ups.
  • WiFi would be great as ideally i would want to beam the photos to my iMac (is this possible?)
Ive been recommended a Sony HX60V and Sony cameras in general. Reviews generally (of the HX60V) are good but not fab.

Any advice will be greatly received.

Banana Boy

467 posts

137 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
I recently bought a Canon G16 which I'm absolutely loving and it does everything you want, even macro down to 1cm focus! I paid £335 but I bet you could find a deal over Chtismas c£300?!

Simpo Two

91,532 posts

289 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
doosht said:
I know next to nothing about cameras. All i do know is that the Nikon D5100 i purchased whilst probably brilliant in other situations is simply not suitable for what i need.

I want a compact camera so i can photograph items using one hand as the other hand is holding something (ooo'err!!)
As long as you're using autofocus you can use a DSLR with one hand, especially a lightweight girlie one smile

doosht

Original Poster:

200 posts

180 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
As long as you're using autofocus you can use a DSLR with one hand, especially a lightweight girlie one smile
I am well aware of that. However, when you are using it many times a day, 5 days a week....
Its a compact that i'm after. Many thanks smile

doosht

Original Poster:

200 posts

180 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
Banana Boy said:
I recently bought a Canon G16 which I'm absolutely loving and it does everything you want, even macro down to 1cm focus! I paid £335 but I bet you could find a deal over Chtismas c£300?!
What's it like in low light situations?

the-photographer

4,448 posts

200 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
Panasonic LX7

GetCarter

30,849 posts

303 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
What are you lot like... it's obviously the RX100 mk 1... Seen at £299 last week and a steal at the price. Good low light and excellent macro. O/P read the reviews.

If you don't buy one, you'll make Santa very unhappy.

Have a good one folks.

Banana Boy

467 posts

137 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
doosht said:
Banana Boy said:
I recently bought a Canon G16 which I'm absolutely loving and it does everything you want, even macro down to 1cm focus! I paid £335 but I bet you could find a deal over Chtismas c£300?!
What's it like in low light situations?
ISO up to 12800 with an aperture wide open at 1.8 it does pretty well!

The RX100 must be a good option also because I've never heard a bad thing about them?!

Sites like WEX Photographic have a comparison feature so you can see the specs side by side and work out which suits your needs best?

anonymous-user

78 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
GetCarter said:
What are you lot like... it's obviously the RX100 mk 1... Seen at £299 last week and a steal at the price. Good low light and excellent macro. O/P read the reviews.

If you don't buy one, you'll make Santa very unhappy.

Have a good one folks.
This - every single day of the week.

rich888

2,610 posts

223 months

Wednesday 24th December 2014
quotequote all
doosht said:
I know next to nothing about cameras. All i do know is that the Nikon D5100 i purchased whilst probably brilliant in other situations is simply not suitable for what i need.

I want a compact camera so i can photograph items using one hand as the other hand is holding something (ooo'err!!)
It Needs to be ....

  • Good in low light situations
  • Good at Macro shots as 99% of the shots are close ups.
  • WiFi would be great as ideally i would want to beam the photos to my iMac (is this possible?)
Ive been recommended a Sony HX60V and Sony cameras in general. Reviews generally (of the HX60V) are good but not fab.

Any advice will be greatly received.
Take a look at the Sony RX100 MK1 which is probably one of the best compacts out there. It's solidly built, has a decent quality lens and one of the biggest sensors in its class. Sony have since released improved MK1 and Mk2 versions but they cost a lot more money. Your money, your choice.

It's very good in low light conditions probably because it has one of the biggest sensors in its class, plus you have full access to change settings from AUTO if you wish. There are also some excellent tutorials available either in book format or Kindle which may also assist you.

I'm not sure about macro photography because I rarely use this facility. Anyone care to post a few macros examples on here. I know GetCarter has plenty of outstanding pics he's taken of landscapes using an RX100, but does he have any macro pics to put us all to shame?

As for wifi to iMac, there is no need to overly complicate things, just eject the SD card from your camera and place in the iMac. NOTE, there is no need to install the bundled software. I use the free downloadable software Google Picasa to import photos onto my iMac and MacBook and it works very well indeed, far better than iPhoto in my humble opinion, just do a search on Google for 'Picasa'. I have an older iMac with no SD card reader so purchased a cheap card reader from of all places Tesco to enable me to copy nearly all card formats and it works a treat.

Slightly off-topic but worthy of a mention would be to recommend that you invest in an external hard drive to store the photographs and videos on, perhaps a 1TB or 2TB Western Digital drive to save clogging up the HD on your iMac. I have two 2TB drives fitted and use Carbon Copy Cloner software to ensure that the photos are copied to both drives just in case the worst happens and one of them crashes.

And for info, I went from a Canon S100 (which broke) to the Sony RX100, and have to say the RX100 is an all round better compact digital camera, just wish it had been this cheap when I was originally looking!

Hope this helps and Merry Christmas smile

Yellabelly

2,258 posts

277 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
RX100 M1 just received from Camera world at £289 (after the £40 cashback) include a Lexar 8GB SD card and a nice Sony Leather case that's a good deal!

doosht

Original Poster:

200 posts

180 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
Well, thanks for those replies. I am now taking a serious look at the Sony RX100 smile

Many thanks smile

doosht

Original Poster:

200 posts

180 months

Friday 26th December 2014
quotequote all
All recommendations were good and appreciated. In the end i decided on a Sony A5000. Its loads lighter than my DSLR and seems to be great for what i need. Price was also a bit cheaper at £233inc.
Thanks again folks.