Digital Cameras

swiss

Can anyone offer me any advice on buying digital cameras. I'm looking for one with a decent resolution (640 * 480 -> 800 *600) and one that offers a decent price - performance ratio.

If there's a particularly good URL that can supply this information could you please include it.
Thanks.

Samson

How much are you going to spend ?

swiss

Hrm, it's not really for me. My brother was enquiring about it - he's working as an architectural technician... so the camera would presumable be for business purposes (putting pictures of houses up on the web etc.)

The price range is £250 - £300.

The Cigarette Smoking Man

It got one of these at the start of the year:

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_product_lobbypage.asp?l=1&p=16&bc=2&product=660

It was over $500, but I'm sure the price has come down since.

Here's a few snaps:
http://www.60hud.com/snaps/P3160028.jpg
http://www.60hud.com/snaps/P3180052.jpg
http://www.60hud.com/snaps/P3170036.jpg

rymus

you might want to start thinking less of the 640x480/800x600 and more of the at least 1024x768. Pictures will be crap at such a low res. Sure the files will be small, but thats of little consolation when each pixel is the size of a small childs head.

You'll more than likely get a budget camera at the price youre looking for, but you get what you pay for essentially. They wont have the functionality or quality of a brand name camera like a canon, olympus, etc.

I dont really know what else to say about digital cameras.. You can spend as little as 200/300 or as much as 3000/4000. It all depends on your needs. If hes going to be using this for business, then the pictures should be excellent quality, high res, 24/32bit colour. If youre only taking the camera out for a day to take pictures of ure mates drunk then u'd get away with a lower spec camera. I cant tell you how much to spend cos at the end of the day if u were going to go and get a good mid range camera it would most likely set u back around 500 quid.

take for example a sony mavica. granted they are pretty high end for average users. I was going to upgrade the mavica I have to a newer model, but thought again when I saw it costs £1000.

anyway, good luck with the search, and may I suggest a browse thru the argos catalog... they have a good range of budget - midrange cameras. Either that or amazon.ie, they have user reviews & stuff.

Samson

OLYMPUS CAMEDIA C2 £299.95
http://cf.olympus-europa.com/consumer/digimg/intro.cfm?id=C-2

Fuji FinePix 1400 £279.95
http://www.fujifilm.com/tcm.html?x-tempest-op=generic&ContentId=2269&UserTypeId=2&CurrentTopCategory=4&pagetype=ContentItemLeaf

CANON POWERSHOT A10 £299.95
http://www.canon.co.uk/cgi-bin/parser.pl?page=products&product=555&prodtype=4&subprodtype=13&range=

SAMSUNG DIGIMAX 210SE +CASE(2 YEAR WARRANTY) £299.95
http://www.nomatica.fr/photo/d210seEN.htm

Fuji FinePix 2400 (8 +16MB+CASE+RECHARGEABLE KIT) £369.95
http://www.fujifilm.com/tcm.html?x-tempest-op=generic&ContentId=10055&UserTypeId=2&CurrentTopCategory=4&pagetype=ContentItemLeaf

CANON POWERSHOT A20 £399.95
http://www.canon.co.uk/cgi-bin/parser.pl?page=products&product=554&prodtype=4&subprodtype=13&range=

I can't recommend any of these cameras in particular.
These prices are given as a guide only, if you live in Dublin I can recommend Dublin Camera Exchange (ask for Billy, Padraig or Ian - don't speak to any of the young lads), they should be able to improve on those prices a bit and advise you as to which is the better model to go for.

_CreeD_

Yup 640x480/800x600 is way too low for anything technical. I know it's more expensive but the best consumer digital camera for price/performance I've seen is the Nikon Coolpix 990/995. Retail here is about 1100 but I've seen it for $600 on sale in the US (Also they're fairly popular on EBAY). Fantastic camera, the picture quality is unrivalled in anything remotely close to it's price range.

kayos

All I can say and Dav will back me up on this is that the Nikon Coolpix 880/885 is a great little camera and the picture quality is great and can go up to a huge 2048 X 1534 (well around that any way). It will also take MOV's which is handy. When I got my last summer it cost around £750 so I'm sure their down in price now. Nikon also do a Coolpix 770/775 which is cheaper but may be what your looking for.

A word of warning about the Fuli Finepix cameras when they say their a 3 mega pixel camera their not they are about 2 mega pixels and they use a routine and a different ccd to produce the 3 mega pixel image. If you get my meaning...

Another word of warning printing the Digi pics to photo paper is very expensive.

kayos

strat

Originally posted by The Cigarette Smoking Man
It got one of these at the start of the year:

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_product_lobbypage.asp?l=1&p=16&bc=2&product=660

It was over $500, but I'm sure the price has come down since.

Here's a few snaps:
http://www.60hud.com/snaps/P3160028.jpg
http://www.60hud.com/snaps/P3180052.jpg
http://www.60hud.com/snaps/P3170036.jpg

very nice quality very crisp
love that first pic - reminds me of Max Payne 0_o

rymus

Originally posted by kayos
Another word of warning printing the Digi pics to photo paper is very expensive.

I tried a few photolabs and got an average price of about 30p for a 6x4 glossy print. Sure thats more than normal printing but it seems to be one of the cheapest. There are a few places on the net u can send the files to be printed. Cant think of any right now but I know they exist.

You could always get your own dye sub printer, but thats getting into amounts of money I dont want to talk about for fear of having a coronary.

_CreeD_

If you're getting a Digital camera you should definitely get your own printer. Try the Epson 890 Photo, very cheap the excellent quality level. Glossy Photo paper will set you back anything from 40p per A4 sheet to 2 quid (For the best Epson 'paper' (Its more like plastic). Considering you can get at least 4 normal photo images onto one sheet it's actually pretty cheap. And you have the benefit of being able to 'develope' your own pics.