BuRR

Which is the best sub-£500 digital camera for me?

I would preferably like to be able to save the piccies on either floppy disk or digital memory sticks (or whatever).

Image quality is what I want mainly, so any recommendations?

mega_stream

Get a 2nd hand Nikon Coolpix995, just seen one on loot for £425
You can get a 128Mb compact flash card from crucial for £46

I've had my 995 since August and its superb.

BuRR

*bump*

any other recommendations? anyone?

Markus

well, I've not used it yet, cos I'm in the USA and the camera is in the UK (still in it's box!) but I got a minolta S304 from Internet Cameras Direct. was pretyy cheap.

Why did I go for it, well, someon on here said it was a great camrea and good price too. Plus it has optical zoom, which is way better than digital zoom, but it has that as well.

when I get back to the UK I'll try it out and let everyone know what I think of it.

ChrisB

Have a look at my site http://www.cxi.org.uk/cars/gallery.asp

Piles of sample piccies from my Digi Ixus.

Chris.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

You could do worse than to check out the reviews on http://www.dpreview.com. There's lots of cameras on there.

IMHO the best storage option available at the moment is Compact Flash cards. They're used by lots of different companies, they're cheap, they have the highest capacity available, and they plug straight into most laptops (ane even some printers) with a £5 adaptor. Smart Media cards are also a good option.

What you don't want are floppy discs or Memory Sticks. Floppy discs are old, slow, and hold about 1 reasonable quality image each. They're dead technology. Memory Sticks are proprietary to Sony, and offer no real advantages over Compact Flash or Smart Media cards. You'd be tying yourself down to one manufacturer pointlessly IMHO.

Andy.

BuRR

ok - I appreciate your opinion. However, if you're gonna spend £600 on a camera, then surely £35 for a 32 meg stick isn't such a problem?

but yeah - I like the look of the Nikon cameras. Better get saving eh?

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

On my camera, a 3 megapixel JPEG at the highest quality setting is about 1.3MB. A 32MB card therefore holds about 24 pictures.

Although a 24 exposure film used to last me for ages, that's changed since buying a digital camera. The psychological reluctance to press the shutter (because to do so costs money) has gone, so I take a LOT more pictures now - and end up with much better results at the end of the day. I can easily fill up a 128MB card on a day out (about 90 shots), and I now use a 1GB Microdrive instead.

A 128MB Compact Flash card costs about £45 (from EBuyer), and Smart Media cards are similar. I wouldn't bother with any smaller capacity cards on a £600 camera.

The Nikons generally get good reviews, and there was a thread a couple of weeks ago from someone who'd just bought a Minolta and was very happy with it. At around £500 you'd do well to look at the Canon G2 or S40 too.

Good luck with whatever you choose

Andy.

howardb

Ive just bought a Canon G2 and am well impressed. Only playing with it at the moment, but theres room to grow into it. Problem with the G2 at the moment is finding one in a shop!

You'll be looking at £600'ish for one, but its money well spent.

[Edited by howardb - 1/20/2002 10:11:51 PM]

BuRR

Thanks to everyone. I have a Canon EOS 500 SLR with a 300mm lens, and I now want to dabble in the digital side.

Image quality is probably the no.1 factor for me.

Can anyone just post some example piccies on this thread please? The reason I want them posted on this thread is so I can see several piccies side by side.

Many thanks.

MartinM

If you have a Canon EOS and a 300mm lens, you will be used to:
- relatively large magnifications
- shallow depth of field
- the ability to change lenses - I presume you have at least one other
- no/practical no shutter delay
- good image quality

£500 consumer point and shoot digitals are incredibly good, but miss out on a number of features that you might have not even appreciated in your SLR - until you find they just don't do them.

I have an Olympus 2020Z (quite old now, I know) and the inability to get a shallow depth of field and the nearly 1 second delay between pressing the shutter and it taking the picture (which in motorsport photography means, literally, many pictures with the car not actually in the frame!) drives me mad.

The way forward is undoubtedly digital SLRs, but they're a bit on the expensive side at the moment - and take some dedication to learn and get the best out of. But if you are serious about photography and have an investment in some good lenses (Canon, Nikor etc), they should be seriously considered.

Yes, I have a vested interest having just bought a Canon EOS D30 which is, undoubtedly, very good...

So having got/had both, I'd just advise that you try a £500 consumer digital in a shop and see if you can really live with it.

BuRR

Thanks again. I don't think the digi camera will replace the SLR, just compliment it. The beauty of having the facility to point and click in the hope that "maybe" a decent piccy will come out of it appeals to me, as well as having the SLR to set-up the piccy.

I've grabbed a few cool piccies of the Network Q with the Canon over the years, a couple being this two: (I blame the bad light for the graininess ) and in the second piccy Colin was absolutely FLYING past us

Anyway, for your pleasure:

1998
Colin at Silverstone


Colin at Crychan


1999
Colin at Silverstone (in his Focus)


Ginger Whinger at Silverstone


Tommi at Silverstone


Juha over the bumps in the Super Special at Silverstone



Sorry for the piccies, but I thought someone may like them

BuRR

I personally think the top one is my fave

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Regards

BuRR
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