Compact Camera Advice

[Elton]

Thinking of getting the wife a new camera for Christmas, as she uses my very old compact.

 

All she needs it for is pictures of the kids and some of the novelty cakes she makes.

 

Is this one a good deal?

[ahammond]

Try www.trustedreviews.com or the Which site. Both of them will give you honest reviews on a range of items including digital cameras.

 

In my own experience what you pay for is not the electronics which are all much of a muchness but the lens. A cheap camera is going to have a cheap lens and no matter what electronics go into it you will never get as good a picture as a more expensive camera with a decent set of optics.

 

I have just bought a Panasonic Lumix with a Leica lens and the difference between in the quality of picture it takes compared to the more expensive Canon that it is replacing is quite substantial. The basic Lumix I think starts around the £180 mark but will be well worth the extra even if it is only used for snapshots.

[Jim Roper]

Thinking of getting the wife a new camera for Christmas, as she uses my very old compact.

 

All she needs it for is pictures of the kids and some of the novelty cakes she makes.

 

Is this one a good deal?

 

Sounds cheap!

 

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/3115002/ar...;mctag=uk_16067

[Newt]

I tried to find info on the camera doing macro zoom and it is shown as n/acm which I don't understand. Can some camera person translate that to English please?

 

Elton - I recently bought a compact camera (different brand) because it did decent macro photographs and was cheaper than buying a macro lens for Jan's good camera. Not sure if you have any need for this though and the 30cm minimum focal length shown for the camera should give any needed close-ups of the cakes.

[ayjay]

I tried to find info on the camera doing macro zoom and it is shown as n/acm which I don't understand. Can some camera person translate that to English please?

 

I don't know what n/acm means but the focus info below is taken from the Sanyo website.

 

Auto focus lens

F: 3.1 (wide) - 5.9 (tele)

(equivalent to 35 - 105mm on 35mm camera)

-Focus range:

Standard: 10cm (wide)/60cm (tele) - inf.

Macro: 5cm - 80cm (wide)/60cm - 80cm (tele)

Manual focus: 14 steps

[ahammond]

When I was into cameras a few years back I could have probably interpreted that lot for you. Nowadays it probably means very little anyway as most digital cameras will have similar specifications albeit advertised in a different jargon depending on the make. It is only when you get the camera in your hands and play with it for a couple of minutes that you can find out if you like it. Take a trip to Comet or somewhere similar and try a few different makes for size. You do not have to buy from them but it will give you a better idea of what you are after. Personally though I would go for a quality lens every time even with a camera just for snapshots.

[n4lly]

Another good price

 

At Comet

 

 

Comes in pink also

[n4lly]

Just found a good priced 4 GB SDHC Memory card

 

Argos-Clearancebargains

[Elton]

Damn. Thought I'd plump for the Fuji one, as I've had good Fuji cameras in the past, but Comet don't accept PayPal.

[Elton]

I went for the Sanyo in the end, simply because it was the simpler option and seemed to do all I needed it to do.