camera please

Originally Posted by xXBADGERXx

(...) Buy a decent quality brand camera and you will reduce your chance of any problems .(...)

Agreed, but even the best will fail there. Nikon Coolpix compacts are nothing to write home about, and not all Canons are created equally. Panasonic seem to be the most consistent in the small camera market right now.

Having said that I have always favoured a Digital Camera that has a good set of optics on it , I still use a Sony DSC-F505 with a Carl Zeiss lens and it is a mere 2.7 MP but takes a cracking picture .

MP count doesn't matter as much as optical quality, but then again wasn't that what you said in the beginning of the thread?

Yeah what I was getting at in a roundabout way is that I would be happier with a good lens optically and less electronics if you like . The point I was trying to make is that I always favour a better lens and less "Whizz-Bangery" . A mate of mine boasted that his camera had higher MP count than mine , cost about a third of my camera and the memory was cheaper . I can sit there all day and capture things that happen in an instant and get more natural looking pictures whilst he shakes his to death yelling "hurry up you Bastaaaaaaaaaaaaard" whilst it writes to memory . I have had this camera for 9 years now , it`s beaten and battered on the body , the coating on the lens is still fine and it takes great pictures .

I must have missed something there. Would someone care to quote the post.

Originally Posted by MattCollins

I must have missed something there. Would someone care to quote the post.

Here you go

[21QUEST]

Originally Posted by Jabba

Here you go

Cheers
Ben

wheres all this come from calm down bloody hell it's a thread about a camera for god's sake.

[mr.anderson]

Originally Posted by Filipe M.

Brilliant small camera, my dad got one and I almost felt tempted to tell him it was broken and he would need to buy a new one while I disposed of it safely... The lack of manual control stopped me from doing it

Yep. I've had a TX55 Lumix for two years and love it. Would recommend it to anyone.

[tigersaw]

I buy digital cameras like a woman buys shoes. I'd suggest for something that you carry around for snapshots, try and get something with optical viewfinder and AA batteries.

[embee]

FWIW.....

If you want a point&squirt to carry round with you, size is important above many other things. There are loads of very decent compacts around now, no need to pay mega-bucks for a cam which will give very nice P&S shots. Also for most purposes a "compact" will be small enough for your average pocket, too small can sometimes be fiddly to hold.

Mp is almost irrelevant for all intents and purposes, it can be argued that anything over about 4Mp will be enough unless you're seriously cropping and printing, and all current contenders will be way over this.

One thing I'd suggest is decide whether you want a wider angle range, many are equivalent to a 35 at the wide end, but some go to 28 equiv, great for landscapes etc.

Check out the recommendeds at Steve's digicams , you can go straight to the "conclusions" page in the reviews to cut a long story short. Also see dpreview

As someone said, all are not made equally, some cameras seem to just work as a package better than others.

Most small cams use proprietary Li-ion batteries now, check the availability of generic batteries and price, I heard one manufacturer changed the battery spec in a follow-up model and there are only genuine OE batteries available at ridiculous prices. You'll want at least one spare battery. I've used £3 internet sourced generic batteries in my Canon and they've been every bit as good as the genuine ones.

[peterco]

Olympus camera's
http://www.camerabox.co.uk/product1....ProductID=9582

pete