New Digital Camera

eiretraveller

Hi all

Just stumbled across this Forum..... good stuff! Am going to check out Gunnes tomorrow in town.... (already have had a look in Camera Exchange)....

Anyway, would really appreciate ANY advice re buying a new camera. Budget approx 500euro max. I have NO 'camera-speak', all I an tell you is the obvious - that I want a good camera (picture quality wise). I am off to S America in a few months so it will be majorly used then!!!

True photography buffs will probably laugh at me at something so trivial - but I can't make up my mind whether to go with a small camera or get a slightly bigger one (better zoom etc)????

My plan between now and S America is to swot up and know what I am doing taking the pics......

ANY advice welcome??

Thanks!! :cool:

melekalikimaka

humm at the price you'd be looking at the very high end point and shoots, maybe one of the better fuji finepix would be in order. they have great image quality and bags of zoom. your just out of the dslr range(changeable lens). if your spending that amount of cash, do research into cameras


http://www.photo.net/equipment/digital/choosing2/

thats a good link, a bit of reading but once you've read it you'd understand the basics of cameras and then you'd have a better idea yourself of what your after

shepherd

I travelled recent for a few months trough middle east and africa. I brought two cameras, one compact digital : a Pentax S4i. The other a bigger digital, Konica Minolta Dimage Z5.

The smaller one I just kept in my pocket all the time. Got great pictures, never missed anything. But as is typical with something of the size, it had only 3x optical magnification which isn't great for any detail in the distance like zooming in on wild animals etc.

The bigger one came out when I was on safari. It had 12x optical zoom, and motion stabaliser. Handy for zooming in on things in the distance.

If I had to recommend one size camera, Id say go with a compact. Thinking about pros/cons, just keeping it in your pocket all the time is worth more than being able to zoom in to greater detail.

One big problem was sand & dust. It eventually wrecked the zoom mechanism. Luckily travel insurance covered it. Ive since replaced it recently with a Canon Ixus 60. Its the same size, just more modern. Its great.

If you are going into desert/rainforest for any length of time, it might be worth looking at this review. Pentax's new camera that is water/dust proof:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/05/22/review_pentax_optio_w10/

eiretraveller

Brilliant info, thanks v much!!!

Was just wondering, would either of you advise a set budget for a 'good' first camera to learn about photography properly? Am I thinking too much or too little??

Again - thanks, really appreciate the quick replies!

shepherd

Say you got a compact digital for €330 ( that what the canon cost me ), then you add a 2GB ( largest you can get i think) SD-card for €85, spare batteries & charger €35 and a hard case for €20 thats €470... close to your original buget of €500

DrummerBoy

You'd get yourself a great point and shoot at around that price.

Canon IXUS 800 IS Very good camera for around E550

FujiFilm F10 for around the E350 mark

HP R817 for around the E299 mark.

cr1spy

I'm in similar position as the original poster, I'm going to Canada for the summer and I'm looking to buy my first digital camera. I've no idea which camera to get. I'm sitting here with the Argos catalogue open in front of and there's 20 pages of cameras. Too much choice!

I've used loads of digital cameras before, and have a decent idea of what the terminology meansr, so any recommendations would be welcome.

• Budget - €250 - €300
• I plan on taking a few landscape shots ( Nigara Falls ) so would I need at least 5 mega pixels?
• Got to take batteries, i.e. no internal batteries

Apart from that I'm pretty open. In an ideal world this camera would be capable in all situations, and would fit in a front pocket of a pair of jeans.

ChityWest

In case the original poster is interested - there is a canon eos 300d going for 550 in the fs general forum and that includes a battery grip.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054942272

Ideo

you can get a really good kodak z740 in argos for €300, add to that a pack of 4 recharageables and charger for an extra twenty and an 1 gb sd card off ebay for about 25, 30 at the very max. for 350 a very good camera with ten optical zoom, and a decent size card to store them, something like 700 photos i think. i'd go for that, and it isn't the bulkiest of cameras in the world either!

infact, i would check out amazon instead of going into any actual bricks and mortar shop!