Whats the best digital camera ?

shepthedog

Hey
I need advice, I am buying a digital camera for xmas and need to know whats the best one around at the moment? Say around the €300 to €500 price range.

Cheers

Krusty_Clown

I really loved my Fuju FinePix F601 (until the damn thing fell out of my pocket on a motorbile trip to Limerick)..

Great resolution, great movies, really good features.. Now selling in Dixons for around €320.. Technology's moved on a little, but I reckon for the money, it's a real bargain.. Looks great too..

eclectichoney

i just got a nikon coolpic 3100 for 350euro a few weeks back, love it to bits. and it has recently come down in price from 450. would really recommend it.

skittishkitten

Well I don't know the price of cameras there or even what's available , but I never see anyone saying anything nice about Olympus cameras ......so I"m throwing in my 2 cents for what it's worth. I have an Olympus C2500L and an Olympus D490Z that I absolutely love , they take asskicking pics , easy to learn , fun to play with. Need to see examples of pics from them ? Then go here :

http://www.geocities.com/skittishkitten/kittenspictures.html

Fabre

http://www.dpreview.com

This is an excellent review site on digital camera.
Use their buying guide, should help you make up your mind.

Placebo

Sonys, Cyber Shot

shepthedog

looks like its down to the coolpix 3100 or sony P52

eclectichoney

g'wan the coolpix! seriously it's tiny and the quality is great, i can email you some sample photos if you like? altho you'll have to take account of my ineptitude with cameras

Fabre

My advice would be get a Canon, their cameras are excellent products.

For your budget might want to have a look at the canon powershot A70 (€339 on nomatica.com they offer free shipping with fedex for Rep of Ireland atm, I ordered a Canon Powershot s45 with them last year)

If you are considering the coolpix 3100 (You can also get it on nomatica.com for €340 with free shipping) have a look a this page :

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canona70/page13.asp

you can see the same scenes taken by a Canon A70 and a coolpix 3100.

Also for a list of recommended cameras

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/default.asp?view=rating

Notice where most of the canon's are in the list.

alb

beware of Sonys because of their proprietry batteries and memory cards. Make sure whatever one you get takes AA batteries it'll be a lot handier.

Sparks

Any opinions on the Fuji Finepix S5000? It's a probable christmas gift for me
I need to use it indoors and outdoors though, for taking photos at target shooting competitions (http://durc.tcd.ie/photos show the kind of photos I'll be taking).

Occidental

Have a few of these in work and so far the results have been excellent. Colours are rich, battery life is good and most of the functions are reasonably easy to figure out. Only down side is the 16mb xD card which comes with the camera, which is next to useless. We've ended up using 256/512 cards and storing shots as raw data. Pc software is also simple, unlike the Sharp software from hell we had been using. If you're thinking of going this way, send me a PM and I might be able to help you out.


cheers,

Pat

Imposter

I've got a coolpix 3100 and i'm not that happy with it. The battery life is crap. The thing goes into standby after 30 seconds of doing nothing which then takes almost 5 seconds to come back to life. Add to that that I just can't seem to take a decent photo when it's dark. If there's something like a streetlight in the pic I always seem to get a trail of light where the streetlight should be.

In saying that though it is really good for real-time pics and it does have a lot of features most of which do exactly what it says on the tin.

vibe666

i have an olympus c750 that i got in thailand for €500 inc. a 256mb xd card and it's amazing. 10x optical and 4x digital zoom. (thats a 40x total zoom for those who are bad at maths), and with 4mp it's still pretty clear at that maginfication too. although i tend to just use the optical and do any zooming on the finished pic on my pc.

highly reccommended anyway with more features than you can shake a stick at. might be out of your price range if you're buying it here though.

comet

Man , I wish I was in the States, just looking at the store B&H, they have the lovely new Canon A80 including 256MB of memory for $409.95 which is about 330euro. God knows what the price for that is in the shops here probably heading for 600 euro.

Sparks

So buy it from the states.
www.buydig.com
www.ebay.com

Or you could buy it from an EU company
www.nycamera.com

comet

I would but I'd probably be hit with import taxes/duty when it arrives in this country!!
NY camera is very good but still not that cheap.

Faltermyer

If it does get stopped coming into Ireland, and its completely random btw.

VAT @21%
Duty @4%
Opening Charge of ~€17

Ouch, eyh?

Oh, and dont forget that any prices you see on an american site, if you were living in the US and bought it, you would have to pay Sales tax on top of that of about 9%. 8.75% in New York at the moment I believe.

Sparks

Originally posted by Faltermyer
If it does get stopped coming into Ireland, and its completely random btw.
Ouch, eyh?

Oh crap, knew I forgot something
Fingers crossed...

comet

Nasty alright, ideal thing is if you know someone coming home for Christmas get them to bring it home for you. Open the box first to get through customs though i suppose.

Sparks

Too late now, it's allready in transit...