Can anyone recommend me a camera?

[ol' dirty]

Firstly, I have to say I know next to nothing about cameras, so please excuse me if I am talking tosh & please correct me.

It's the wife's birthday next month & she wants a Digital Camera...

We have a Samsung x7meg (sorry don't know the model) which was sold to us a few years ago as all singing and all dancing, but in reality it's a pile of cack;

The picture quality is shockingly bad- really grainy.


I took an old digital Cannon camera (think x1.5meg) away to Le Mans a few years ago & was really impressed with the quality.

I know most Cannons will be over the budget hence why I don't mind buying an older model- as long as it's relativly small.


Budget is up to & around £150.00- was thinking about a Cannon Ixus 80?

Cannon













Samsung






Thanks in advance

Edited by ol' dirty on Friday 17th October 11:08

[ol' dirty]

For the love of god - please bear with me while I try & host the images

[SamHH]

There are plenty of compact digital cameras under £150, including Canons. See here:
http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/cat9.html

Being small, they all have limitations, but as long as you work around those limitations (as you must with any camera) most should be capable of taking decent photos. However, if your current Samsung camera has a 7 megapixel sensor, it must be relatively recent, and I'd be surprised if that isn't capable of taking good photos too.

[ol' dirty]

SamHH said:

There are plenty of compact digital cameras under £150, including Canons. See here:
http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/cat9.html

Being small, they all have limitations, but as long as you work around those limitations (as you must with any camera) most should be capable of taking decent photos. However, if your current Samsung camera has a 7 megapixel sensor, it must be relatively recent, and I'd be surprised if that isn't capable of taking good photos too.

It's at least 3 years old by now, I was really surprised to see an older camera taking a better quality of picture.

It's hard to explain (as I know bugger all about it) it does take good pictures, but, I was surprised to see an old x1.5meg taking pictures that are just as clear if not better.

Both cameras are of a similar size, a colleague at work has said it could be down to the digital chip fitted???

I just want the best quality of picture on offer from a small camera under £150.00

Cheers

[SamHH]

Now having seen the examples, I wouldn't say the Samsung images look "grainy". In the first two, the colours look comparatively un-vibrant and 'washed out'. Maybe that's why you feel they don't look very good. The colours are down to the processing. The camera will do some of this before it saves the images to the memory card and you might be able to adjust this in the menus to make the photos more vibrant. Other than that, you can adjust them in an image editor on your computer, although obviously this is more work. Here is a very crude example of what I'm talking about:



The photo of the engine looks a bit crap I'm guessing because it was taken indoors in poor light, whereas all the other photos appear to have been taken outdoors.

[trooperiziz]

When I was looking at a similar price point, I ended up with a Panasonic Lumix (can't remember the model exactly) Lovely cameras, worth looking at P

[rustyspit]

Several people in my family have got the ixus 70, and all have been pleased with it.

I seem to remember one of the drawbacks of the ixus 80 being that it doesn't have a viewfinder, only a screen on the back? That may not be a problem for you, but a viewfinder can be useful if you're going to use the camera in very bright light (e.g. when skiing) when it can be hard to see the screen.

[Steve Evil]

rustyspit said:

Several people in my family have got the ixus 70, and all have been pleased with it.

I seem to remember one of the drawbacks of the ixus 80 being that it doesn't have a viewfinder, only a screen on the back? That may not be a problem for you, but a viewfinder can be useful if you're going to use the camera in very bright light (e.g. when skiing) when it can be hard to see the screen.

Think that's the Ixus 75, basically the same camera as the 70, but with a larger rear screen and no viewfinder.

[CivicMan]

Ok, definitive answer for you. An excellent camera, easy to use, with super quality images is :

Fuji Finepix F50D.

Currently available around £120 (Currys/Amazon etc ) - you'd find it hard to find a better camera at the price.

[ol' dirty]

Just spoken to a friend who owns a camera shop & rates the Fuji F50D highly- although he does not stock them anymore- due to competition from Currys et all.

But has recommended the Sony W110 to be just as good.
He has the W120 in stock, but said the W110 will do just as good a job & it's cheaper.

Does anyone have any experience of the Sony W range?

[SpydieNut]

we got the panasonic lumix TZ 5 a few months ago and are very impressed with it. it's possibly slightly over budget though - i think we paid £180 ish.

[ALawson]

I have a IXUS 960IS fresh from being repaired, great to have it back and great photos.

[Penny-lope]

SpydieNut said:

we got the panasonic lumix TZ 5 a few months ago and are very impressed with it. it's possibly slightly over budget though - i think we paid £180 ish.

I'd give the TZ 5 a thumbs up too. Very easy to use, not too bulky, and amazing the quality of pics you can get (along with the crap ones too )

[Ordinary Bloke]

Pocketable - Canon Ixus.

Good Pictures - Canon or Nikon Digital SLR.

Megapixels don't matter, 6-12Mpix is irrelevant.

But I'd stick with Canon or Nikon...

[SpydieNut]

Penny-lope said:

SpydieNut said:

we got the panasonic lumix TZ 5 a few months ago and are very impressed with it. it's possibly slightly over budget though - i think we paid £180 ish.

I'd give the TZ 5 a thumbs up too. Very easy to use, not too bulky, and amazing the quality of pics you can get (along with the crap ones too )

- maybe i should have explained a bit about what i thought was good about it



the quality of the pics is excellent, it has a great, 10x optical zoom. it's small enough to be carryable but not so small that it's too fiddly for my ham-fisted hands to operate

oh - and we got it in black - and i think it looks great

[ALawson]

These are a couple of mine with the 960 IS




Just need to get a DSLR before going on Safari.