£150-220 compact with decent features
Discussion
Hi,
I am travelling to Hong Kong/China so want a camera to document the trip. However I'd also like it to be useful for other things after the trip, including a bit of car photography, maybe night photos and even maybe occasional sport photography.
I assumed modern compacts would have come far enough to do some manual functions, longer exposures, decent ISOs etc. so I checked out an Olympus MJU 1010, a really small compact but with 7x zoom, which seemed fantastic at first. However I was very disappointed to see it had almost no manual settings but for the flash modes, ISO and white balance. I just don't imagine I could do much more than point and click photography with that. Don't get me wrong I'm not a manual mode freak but do like easy adjustment of ISO, exposure and focus, and also prefer a viewfinder (real or lcd like a Fuji). I have an old digital SLR but don't want to lug it around with me on this trip. I really like the idea of a compact. I tried a £220 Powershot with 10x zoom but it was just a little bulky and also took 2xAAs which I hated buying!
Any suggestions? Does that 7x zoom Olympus compact which I like have a crap lens/image quality because of its size? Do modern cameras suck AAs much slower? Are the mid-size Panasonics which I've been recommended any good (i'm shying away as they're not a 'real' camera maker)?
I am travelling to Hong Kong/China so want a camera to document the trip. However I'd also like it to be useful for other things after the trip, including a bit of car photography, maybe night photos and even maybe occasional sport photography.
I assumed modern compacts would have come far enough to do some manual functions, longer exposures, decent ISOs etc. so I checked out an Olympus MJU 1010, a really small compact but with 7x zoom, which seemed fantastic at first. However I was very disappointed to see it had almost no manual settings but for the flash modes, ISO and white balance. I just don't imagine I could do much more than point and click photography with that. Don't get me wrong I'm not a manual mode freak but do like easy adjustment of ISO, exposure and focus, and also prefer a viewfinder (real or lcd like a Fuji). I have an old digital SLR but don't want to lug it around with me on this trip. I really like the idea of a compact. I tried a £220 Powershot with 10x zoom but it was just a little bulky and also took 2xAAs which I hated buying!
Any suggestions? Does that 7x zoom Olympus compact which I like have a crap lens/image quality because of its size? Do modern cameras suck AAs much slower? Are the mid-size Panasonics which I've been recommended any good (i'm shying away as they're not a 'real' camera maker)?
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