Digital Camera Advise Please

[Steve_T]

Hi all,

I'm in need of a bit advice from the photographic experts among you. I'm in the process of buying a digital camera. I'm looking in the £600-900 range, have read a number of reviews and am now struggling to decide between a Minolta Dimage 7i, Nikon Coolpix 5700 and Sony F717.
The Sony seems to do well in most reviews, but got absolutely slated in one for being slow and generally a pain to use. I'm not all that keen on the proprietary storage requirements that the Sony brings with it. The 7i is the cheapest to pick up but apparently eats batteries at a very high rate. The Nikon is the most expensive of the bunch and yet doesn't seem to perform any better than the rest. I'm looking for something which takes good pics out of the box, but will enable me to use more advanced techinques as I learn. Does anyone out there in PH land own one of the above and what are they really like to live with?

Thanks,

Steve.

[pies]

i've recently bought an olympus cz5050-zoom its actually cheaper than you price range.Picture quality is stunning (5 million pixels).You can pick it up and point and take photo.It also has program modes apature priority,shutter priority etc.Uses rechargeable batteies and comes with the charger
Well worth a look

[sparks]

Your concerns on the Sony are well founded. I looked at the cheaper Sony cameras (I have a D8 camcorder), and did some investigating, and apart from magazines, there was not a great deal of support for them (apart from the 'it's a Sony, it must be good' brigade).

I would lean toward the Nikon, as I think the lens will be the best. I have also heard good things of the Fuji at that sort of price).

Sparks

[Beano500]

I'd go Nikon (but then I would!) mostly because of their pedigree, features and the build quality (but then I'd expect to kick it around for ten years before it fell to pieces).

You haven't mentioned, and it might be worth considering the Fujifilm S602 - it's a stunner in the value for money, or "pixels for your pounds" stakes and is getting good reviews all over.

Key has to be that you go and fiddle (oo-er) with a few. The problem is that all of these will have more functions than you know how to shake a stick at. You need to work out which you are going to be comfortable with - ergonomically too (if it feels good to use you're going to want to use it). To a large extent, and especially if you don't have desperate need for all the features, the technical spec is a waste of time.

A bit like choosing a car, it matters that it feels right and fits. They all do 0-60 eventually, only when you know your f-stop from your ISO will you need to worry about whether it does it sub five seconds

[plotloss]

Dimage 7i, just for the 1Gb MicroDrive option.

If you have mates in the US you can pick them up there for around £350.

Matt.

[clubsport]

On a lesser budget I recently purchased the Nikon4300 coolpix works fine easy to use,,,fells like a quality piece of kit....

[alunr]

I bought a Kyocera FineCam at Xmas and I've taken about 500 pics since then - probably never took that many in the 2 years I owned my kodak because it was so big and slow - Its a really neat liitle camera you can put in your pocket (about cigarette packet sized!).

[SGirl]

I've got a Coolpix 5700 - I like it a lot and would certainly recommend it. It supports the 1 GB Microdrive (although IMHO you'd be better off investing in some more memory cards instead...), the lens is excellent and you can start simple and work your way up. Picture quality is very good too.

Take a look here for a review: www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikoncp5700

You should be able to find reviews of the other cameras at this site too to help you compare them.

>> Edited by SGirl on Tuesday 4th March 13:05

[Davel]

I'm not very technical but needed a digital camera for work (honest!) last year. I bought a Fuji FinePix 2800Zoom for much less than your budget.

I might be talking through my ar** but I'd have a look at one before making a final choice and spending more than you need to. You could spend the difference on your car!

>> Edited by Davel on Tuesday 4th March 15:36

[richardcraig]

We have a Dimage 7 here at work.

Cracking pictures and a good flash. I have a Kodax DX4900 at home and the flash on that is very poo.

Buy the latest 2000mAh batteries and they should last for ages. I used the 7 at a prize giving recently and tooks 20-30 pictures with the flash and the screen no problem. A 128mb card in the 7 will hold about 200 images at 1600xwhatever.

I've not looked at the others as I don't need one, so can't comment on them.

Edited to say the Dimage 7 takes AA batteries so it's cheaper to have a few sets of rechargables ready. I've got an ultra-rapid charger that'll do them in 1-2 hours. Although the Dimage doesn't have a hotshoe and the Nikon does which is a plus point to the Nikon.

>> Edited by richardcraig on Tuesday 4th March 15:51

[.Mark]

Davel said: I'm not very technical but needed a digital camera for work (honest!) last year. I bought a Fuji FinePix 2800Zoom for much less than your budget.

I might be talking through my ar** but I'd have a look at one before making a final choice and spending more than you need to. You could spend the difference on your car!

>> Edited by Davel on Tuesday 4th March 15:36

Agreed, I have the S304 which is the new version of the 2800 - excellent camera IMHO. If you want to see some sample shots drop me a line and I'll buzz some over.

[angusfaldo]

.Mark said:

Davel said: I'm not very technical but needed a digital camera for work (honest!) last year. I bought a Fuji FinePix 2800Zoom for much less than your budget.

I might be talking through my ar** but I'd have a look at one before making a final choice and spending more than you need to. You could spend the difference on your car!

>> Edited by Davel on Tuesday 4th March 15:36

Agreed, I have the S304 which is the new version of the 2800 - excellent camera IMHO. If you want to see some sample shots drop me a line and I'll buzz some over.

Agreed also. I use a 6900 zoom and the results in my amateur hands are quite spectacular.

[mr_tony]

Kyocera FineCam

Got one too, yet to find fault with it, and also yet to find a smaller 3Mpix camera...

[joust]

All my pictures (see my profile/web site) are taken using a Olympus CamMedia 2000. Compared to most other cameras it's quality belies its price.

Best digital for me at the moment is has to be the Cannon Digital IXUS range - the new v3 beats the pants of practically anything else for quality and form factor.

J

[Nacnud]

Both the December and January Sprint covers came out of my S40. Neither front cover is full frame!
Results speak for themselves.....
I've also enlarged full frame to 15"x10" and it's razor sharp.

It's really a semi-professional EOS wrapped up to look like a harmless compact. I can use it situations where an SLR would attract too much attention and its small enough to carry around all the time.

I think its successor, the S45, is about £500.

[Steve_T]

Cheers all,

Not sure my decision is any easier now, as I have a few more options to consider, but certainly food for thought.

Steve.

[pies]

Steve a few pointers me old man told me (he used to do it for a living)
1.Think about what you want the camera for i.e snaps landscape portrait sport etc
2.On digital cameras the lens on all but the very top end is fixed so once you've got the camera your stuck with the lens (adaptors can be bought for wide/telephoto) but if the lens is "slow" or poor quality this will show up.
3.If your doing more than snaps what add ons are made as this is where digital cameras fall below 35mm,some makes have their own software etc so you can get stung for upgrades.This also applies to BATTERIES as i found out so i stayed clear of them.
4.Make sure the camera feels right for YOU if it dosent feel right discard from your list.
5.Pixels as you are probably aware are fairly high up on the list of requirements.2meg is good 5 is brill 11 is obviously better but i cant tell the difference between 5 and 11.
5.Flash - if your planning to do alot of flash photography check the prices of the flash guns as they can almost be as much as the camera again.
6.If there is an old style camera shop local to you use it as the info (and help)you will get from these shops is priceless i've used my local for almost 20 years and the assisstance i get is brill and worth paying a bit more for the gear.
7.Take your time and make sure YOU are satisfied with the camera
Hope some of this helps

[Pookie]

I have the fuji finepix 9600Zoom its great quality goes from totally auto(which is a bit slow while it clinks and clunks about)to totally manual and has all the manual features of any professional camera, but I would still depending on what its used for, add a few £100 on an go for a proper SLR digi cam with standard interchangeable lenses.

[beano500]

Pookie said: add a few £100 on an go for a proper SLR digi cam with standard interchangeable lenses.

I think you're up into £1500+ territory for something good.

For my money, I'm sticking to a secondhand Nikon F100 (c£600) and F90X (c£400) and a quality film scanner (sub £500). Still cheaper than a Fuji S2 or Nikon D100! Yes, it's a much slower process, but the quality is only just being caught up by the 5 Megapixel mob and I can use interchangeable lenses......

...I know, can't do video, uses up precious silver, bloomin' Luddite aren't I?



>> Edited by beano500 on Wednesday 5th March 07:41

[Nacnud]

pies said: Steve a few pointers me old man told me (he used to do it for a living)
6.If there is an old style camera shop local to you use it as the info (and help)you will get from these shops is priceless i've used my local for almost 20 years and the assisstance i get is brill and worth paying a bit more for the gear.
Hope some of this helps

I got my S40 by going to trusted camera shop and basically saying that I wanted a digital camera with a razor sharp lens. Didn't care which manufacturer and didn't care about features.
They gave me a choice of two - and they weren't wrong.

Happy snapping - Duncan