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I noticed an www.traveler-service.com/xs40usflash/ for £70 in the shop. Quite tempted, looking at the spec. I wouldn't worry about particular manufacturers or models - just the picture you get. If whatever you get ain't good enough, take it back. The one above has a 3-yr. guarantee which is helpful reassurance. It's probably "badge engineering", but don't know what else it's sold as.
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I noticed an www.traveler-service.com/xs40usflash/ for £70 in the shop.
Thanks FT. It probably is just badge engineering, but I suspect I'll be told to go for a 'brand'.
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The Aldi cameras are just about OK, but you can get very much better for the same or slightly higher price from the big brand names such as Canon, Fuji etc.
The majority of digital cameras are still made in Taiwan and most are rebadged OEM products.
Megapixels are important, but not as much as the quality of the lens - a top brand camera manufacturer will offer both in the quality and quantity required.
My six or seven year old Minolta 2MP digital camera can produce remarkably detailed A4 prints, but this is very much down to a superb 3x zoom lens.
Don't buy a digital camera on specifications alone - you need to know the ease of use, how it handles and the results it can offer and you can only do this at a specialist outlet such as Jessops.
Check out the Argos website for some bargain buys and also keep an eye on www.morgancomputers.co.uk; unfortunately its recent offer of a particular Nikon model for £75 is now finished.
By the way, Fuji was the first major Japanese optical company to have the vision to realise the future impact of digital photography and planned its retail products on that basis.
Edited by Stuartli on 10/11/2009 at 15:31
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The Aldi cameras are just about OK but you can get very much better for the same or slightly higher price from the big brand names such as Canon Fuji etc.
Can you tell me which at the same price, 'cos I'm interested. I've got a DC-8600 at the moment, which does give good results (better than a friend's Canon of the same sort of level). I rather want a slimmer one, although the current one is just about OK size-wise, it's over 3 years old.
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>>> My six or seven year old Minolta 2MP digital camera can produce remarkably detailed A4 prints, but this is very much down to a superb 3x zoom lens.<<<
Same with my 5 year old Olympus AZ1 with 3.2MP & 3 x zoom, it takes much better pics than my fairly new FinePix S5800 with its 8MP and 10 x zoom.
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All cameras are pretty similar for this price. Canon, Olympus, Nikon would all do the job. Jessops website has a good system for comparing models.
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Jessops website has a good system for comparing models.
Thanks - it's quite fun! I'm liking the look of the Fujifilm Finepix A170, which you can get for £56 from Dixons at the moment. Our first digital was a Fuji and it was cheap and cheerful.
www.dixons.co.uk/product.php?sku=093074
Edited by Focus {P} on 10/11/2009 at 13:41
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1) Do you need a proper rechargable lithium battery? I much prefer these as with AA's you're constantly have to replace them.
2) What zoom level do you need? Do you need any sort of manual control?
Don't get bogged down with megapixels, the quality of the sensor and lens is far more important. At the sub £100 market I always always prefer yesterdays model as you get much much better value. Megapixels is nothing more than a pointless marketing gimick at this price point, as longs as its 6 megapixels or above you will fine.
If it was my money I would be looking at Nikon, Canon, Lumix and possibly Sony. The lest gasgets or gimicks the better, you just want half decent lens and a good sensor and it is possible to get under £100.
You really do get what you pay for with photography and if you're spending £60 you might as well spent £90 and get a much better camera. Fuji make some decent cameras but its normal to get a big discount with them.
Canon/Nikon/Panasonic Lumix are harder to get discounts on but make better cameras these are the BMW of the camera world. Sony can make some decent cameras but I find them too pricey for what they are.
The other more exotic brands are way out of your budget, so we can forget about Leica etc.
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This could fit the bill comrade ~ tinyurl.com/ycdv3z6
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Indeed if it as my money it is probably what I would go for. The problem we had when my sister had the same budget is we decided if we got one that took AA's a battery charger is a must that added £20 onto the bill. We ended up going from a £60 a budget and buying a £130 Panasonic Lumix with Lieca lens, can't remember the exact model but it takes some good photographs but has no manual controls so I could not live with it.
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Also in responce to replies earlier on. That Aldi special is not really very good value for money and its an unkown quantity. There are plenty of discounts on older models such as Canon and even Fuji. My money by far is on the Canon from Amazon they have very efficient sensors too so don't tend to eat the batteries like some cheaper cameras do.
I buy a lot of cheap crap, cars, computer monitors, cases, food but two things I always believe you get what you pay for more than anything else is HIFI and cameras. Both have similar properties though in that the quality of the components has a direct relation on performance rather than spec.
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tinyurl.com/yh3htmr
wife bought basically the same model 18 months ago but she never gets a look in as ive always got it
it runs on aa batteries ,i buy rechargeables from netto and they work together superb
it loads to the computer with no aditional programmes needed
it does movies
it does a blast of pictures in one go
its superb
and i know nought about cameras
a picture i took at the shay harrogate this year with it.....
i6.photobucket.com/albums/y246/smartiesx3/DSC01318...g
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That photo just explains why I hate this megapixel crap. As good as I am sure you camera is you can see when you zoom into the original resolution it becomes very grainy and the picture looses its qualities. It is a marketing con the general public have fallen for :(.
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That photo just explains why I hate this megapixel ... when you zoom into the original resolution ... >>
Rattle - Can you tell us what was the original resolution? (Don't tell me, you have bell boy's original!)
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I think an eloquent optical / digital expert should explain the difference between an optical and a digital zoom and their respective effects.
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I think an eloquent optical / digital expert should explain the difference between an optical and a digital zoom and their respective effects.
Not sure about eloquent, but...
A digital zoom effectively just makes the pixels bigger and chops off the edges to keep the picture the same size. Thus you reduce the picture resolution - it might start to look 'blocky'.
An extreme example - take a picture with a resolution of 4x4 pixels. To digital zoom it x2, you just take the middle 2x2 pixels and double their size. Final resolution is thus 2x2 (large pixels) instead of the original 4x4 (small pixels).
With an optical zoom, the optics do the enlarging ie. the picture falling on the 4x4 pixel sensor changes (is enlarged), but the final image is still 4x4 pixels, so you won't get increased 'blockiness'. The image quality will depend on your optics.
Hope that was better than my 'where posts appear in a thread' explanation :-)
Edited by Focus {P} on 10/11/2009 at 15:14
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Both my kid's digicams bought new this year are on the desk by me.
A Samsung L201 10.2MP bought for about £65 and a Panasonic Lumix FS4 8MP which was just under £80.
The megapixels make no difference for normal use once over 5MP or so. The Samsung has a quality strong feeling plastic case with a nice pink metallic looking back and front... the Lumix case feels a bit weak in comparison and is boring black.
Both have clear large displays. Both have specific Li-ion batteries which hold plenty of charge for an extensive days use (100+ images, flash use and loads of video plus reviewing time)... the Lumix battery annoyingly has to come out of the camera to go in the supplied charger which is another bit of kit to forget.
The Samsung is the easier to use with a more intuative menu/controls. Picture quality is very similar and completely acceptable... the Lumix is the one most likely to get caught out in extreme lighting conditions.
They both have good video performance with again the Samsung having the edge.
Importantly both of them comfortably out-perform my 5yr old Sony that cost around £320 back then.
We are also about due to change the Sony and I'd been looking up to £225... in truth I would be hard pressed to justify anything better than my daughters Samsung.... but I wouldn't have a pink one!
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Both my kid's digicams bought new this year are on the desk by me.
Sorry MM - missed this first time around. Thanks for the info.
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That Aldi special is not really very good value for money There are plenty of discounts on older models such as Canon and even Fuji.
I'm interested by that, being tempted by the offer at £70. What's got a better spec., at the same price? I could by persuaded.
Edited by FotheringtonThomas on 10/11/2009 at 14:09
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The Canon at £73 which features something called a known quantity lens. Anybody can buy in a load of cheap parts from China and make a digital camera, but the likes of Canon have is years of exprience in knowing how their own parts work together.
It dosn't matter how good the spec is on paper if the lens and sensor are crap which they usualy are. Look for reviews on that Aldi camera, compare with the Canon :).
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I also love the featue digital image stablizer? Right what ever happened to a mechanical one which all decent cameras have :(
Its just full of pointless gimicks, oh and don't be fooled by the fact the memory card is included, 1gb cards cost £3 to buy.
The main problem by far is the lens don't have a brand on them. If any decent company had made the lens they would want to scream about it.
Rember with cameras it is not about spec it is about qualility. You want to be able to take decent pictures in all conditions. Not pay £70 to find that you need a flash in anything less than perfect lighting conditions.
Edited by Rattle on 10/11/2009 at 14:13
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I also love the featue digital image stablizer? Right what ever happened to a mechanical one which all decent cameras have :(
It's expensive, that's what. Can you to find one on any £70 camera??
Its just full of pointless gimicks oh and don't be fooled by the fact the memory card is included 1gb cards cost £3 to buy.
Who's "fooled"? It's probably a slow card, too, as many are.
The main problem by far is the lens don't have a brand on them. If any decent company had made the lens they would want to scream about it.
It surely matters anout the *results*?
Rember with cameras it is not about spec it is about qualility. You want to be able to take decent pictures in all conditions. Not pay £70 to find that you need a flash in anything less than perfect lighting conditions.
I am not saying that that camera is a very good one - I'm sure there are many at this level that are about even. However, I think your comments are indicative of blinkered thinking.
Edited by FotheringtonThomas on 10/11/2009 at 14:28
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I would just rather have a proper branded one at this price point. You can get a decent Canon with a good spec for £73 so it seems expensive to me. If the Aldi camera was £50 then I would agree with you.
Its like you could have a Proton with all the luxeries or a Ford with hardly anything but I still would take the Ford because I know I could get parts for it in 5 years time and I know if I have a little bump there will be replacement trim in scrap yards.
I've also found in the past a lot of the Aldi specials are not really very good value.
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You can get a decent Canon with a good spec for £73 so it seems expensive to me.
Which one?
Is it a *better* spec than the one on offer?
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Thanks everyone. I deliberately didn't specify pixels because I find 2Mp is enough for our snaps, and I don't think you can buy a camera with as few as that.
The rechargeables in our current Canon seem to last a reasonable length of time, and we've already got batteries/chargers, so I'm not that bothered about going for lithium.
The Canon and Sony certainly look worth considering - I'll be running them past SWMBO in the near future.
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Ok not you need to go your local camera shop and play with some cameras to get a feel for them :).
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Focus. Just noticed your old camera is an A75. I had one on trial before I bought our Sony and the Canon's image quality was excellent... better than the Sony really. Only bought the Sony as the Canon was too big for jeans pockets.
Perhaps you ought to go for another camera in your price range that has good reviews for its image quality as opposed to facilities you don't need or you could end up disapointed. There are some good review sites on the net.
Edited by M.M on 10/11/2009 at 14:47
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Focus. Just noticed your old camera is an A75.
To be honest, although the A75 was supposed to be quite good at the time (it was about £200 IIRC), I've never been that impressed with its pictures - nothing wrong with them as such, but I've felt the could be 'better' in some unquantifiable way. Nothing to do with the photographer of course :-)
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It's all down to taste of course but I liked the A75 for its accurate restrained colours and subtle light/shade definition which was more in line with our SLR experiences than the Sony we eventually bought. The Sony puts a lot more processing into its images to get a vivid result which isn't always what you want.
It's a shame you can't post images on this site as I have some cracking air to air images of fighter aircraft taken with the A75.
I would say that these days with bigger flatscreen monitors 2MP isn't enough to view properly on the PC... fine for 6x4" prints though.
Edited by M.M on 10/11/2009 at 15:28
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You can post images, post them to photobucket and then just post a link to it on here :).
I keep meaning to out and take some good plane pics, never seem to get the chance though. Got the day off today and it should be the perfect time do to some wonderful photography but the weather has canceled that :(.
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The Sony puts a lot more processing into its images to get a vivid result which isn't always what you want.
That might have been it actually - I remember looking at some shots my mum had taken of us with her Fuji and comparing them with some shots I had taken with the Canon, and thinking hers looked more 'vibrant' (don't like the word but seems appropriate here).
BTW nothing to stop you uploading to a photo website (photobucket etc.) and posting a link here.
EDIT: great minds etc.
Edited by Focus {P} on 10/11/2009 at 15:32
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Its the old HIFI trick. A lot of the cheaper proper HIFI stuff make the sound really loud and vivid so it sounds very detailed. When you move on to proper HIFI stuff (e.g £300 plus a seperate) all that vibrancy becomes subtle and you hear a lot less but what you are hearing is the original instrunments being played, not all the distortion the equipment has added in the process.
It is the same with cheaper cameras the processer has to add its own stuff to make the picture look good. This means its not quite pure. What Sony and Samsungs are experts at doing is making a cheaper produce seem very good to the average consumer. My parents have a cheap £100 Sony CD player (seperate) and it all sounds fine but you know the processor is adding things to make up for what it can't reply. However at the £100 price point it is all you want.
I have a Panasonic FZ7 which is a dated bridge camera, paid around £230 for it in Jan 2007. Day light pictures are perfect but to get any decent night shot you have to play around for 5 minutes with all the manual controls. A more expensive camera would have done a better job in automatic mode. Most cameras will be full of compromise it is just knowing what you can put up with and what you can't.
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Ha I could Photobucket a couple of images but then you'd all see my other secrets....
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You could always make another account :). I have lots of pics on Photobucket but none of them are really a secret. Anything I don't want other people to see is not on the web :).
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Not back to hi-fi again... :-)
Rattle - I would love to spend a fortune on a good (by your standards) bit of kit. But to be honest I would rather put my money and time into finding music I like - I love hearing one of my favorite songs on my wife's radio alarm clock. Ok it might sound 'better' on a real hi-fi, but for me the quality of reproduction is only a small part of the overall enjoyment.
And I think it's the same for cameras and the pictures they take - I'm more interested in the content than the reproduction (despite moaning about the A75 earlier).
As I've mentioned before when discussing high-spec TVs, Barry Norman says the 3 most important things in a film are 1) the script 2) the script, and 3) the script, and no TV is going to improve that :-)
Ramble over.
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I use spotify now, costs £10 a month but is 320kbps which is fine. I have spent as much on music as my HIFI kit, well over £1k. I have bought old LPs which cost £20 each in the past too.
Same with photography I used to take 100's of pictures a month but I am too busy now. I paid £230 for my camera and have taken well in excess of 3000 photographs on it. I just like to get the best kit I can afford without it affecting other parts of life.
The problem lately is the weather is stopping me doing what I enjoy, I needed a proper day off today (hence all my posts) but I should be out taking lots of wonderful photographs but it never stops raining.
Also my £230 camera is now three years old and I have no plans to replace it. As it has 12x and optical stablisation it is perfect for the shots I mainly do - buildings.
As for TVs the really odd thing is I never really got it, I use my 22" PC monitor for my TV and some people would find the quality awful but I don't mind.
You are completly right, no point on paying a lot for equipment if it dosn't get used.
Edited by Rattle on 10/11/2009 at 16:02
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Ahh so you perhaps thought the A75 a bit bland... that's easy then as you'd be well suited by the current £60-£80 Samsung and Sony models.
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>>>>>but I should be out taking lots of wonderful photographs but it never stops raining.<<<<<
Go and walk in the rain rattle, it's a wonderful solitary thing to do.
Raindrops make the music and people stay at home:)
Pat
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Nothing wrong with rain, Rattle. Cameras work in the rain, its liquid sunshine, no rain and you would be living in a desert.
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consumer stuff like this I always look at sites like hotukdeals to see what offers are on.
1st page shows Fuji Finepix A170 on sale at ASDA for £53 - Any good?
The Fujifilm FinePix A170 Compact Digital Camera is a new addition to the hugely popular A-series from Fujifilm. It has a resolution of 10.2 megapixel, a 3x optical zoom lense and a Panorama mode allowing you to take three consecutive photos and then seamlessly creates a wide shot from them. The A170 incorporates Scene Recognition AUTO which intelligently identifies and recognises 6 different scenes Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Backlit Portrait, Night and Night Portrait and then adjusts the cameras settings to give the best picture. The Face Detection technology works alongside the Portrait mode to recognise any faces in shot and adjust the focus and exposure accordingly to give magnificent results. The video capture mode creates 640 x 480 pixel VGA video clips with sound making sure you can capture things exactly the way they happen. The Fujifilm FinePix A170 is a stylish and affordable way to take the perfect picture.
Full Specification
Colour Silver
Model Number A170
Picture Resolution (Megapixels) 10.2
LCD Screen Size (inch) 2.7
Optical Zoom 3x
Built In Flash Yes
Battery Type 2xAA
Face Detection Technology Yes
Red Eye Reduction Yes
More: Asda Direct and George dealsTags: (Add a tag)
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1st page shows Fuji Finepix A170 on sale at ASDA for £53 - Any good?
Thanks AC - in fact that was my first suggestion back here :-)
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=80012&...e
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Here's a Lumix in your price bracket. Special offer which may not be around too long.
www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/531111/PANASONIC...S
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>>> Here's a Lumix in your price bracket. Special offer which may not be around too long.
www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/531111/PANASONIC...S
Good camera @ a Good price!
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Some of the cheapies - particularly those with AA or AAA batteries tend to be a bit chunky.
Worth going to a shop to have a look at the different sizes.
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www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/531111/PANASONIC...S Good camera @ a Good price!
Another one for the list - thanks chaps.
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>>I would say that these days with bigger flatscreen monitors 2MP isn't enough to view properly on the PC>>
Actually you are probably viewing .jpeg files in such cases...:-)
Even a top range, state of the art LCD or plasma TV only reproduces about 2MP (1920x1080) with present HD transmissions.
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>>Actually you are probably viewing .jpeg files in such cases...:-)
Isn't that what everyone does?
And just to explain when I said 2mp was a bit marginal for modern flatscreen monitors it seems to me gloss screen monitors in the common 19"-23"size will soon show flaws in images with smaller file sizes. You only need to zoom in a fraction and digital blockiness can show.
Having had a SLR with several lenses for years the main disadvantage to a digital point and shoot is the lack of decent zoom.... so I make up for it with cropping on the PC which soons shows faults as mentioned above.
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>>Having had a SLR with several lenses for years the main disadvantage to a digital point and shoot is the lack of decent zoom....>>
As someone who also has had various SLRs and a wide range of lenses over the years (I worked in a professional capacity), the one thing I would never dream of doing is buying a point and shoot or any other type of camera without a proper viewfinder.
Fancy trying to cover a wedding or a Premier League fixture holding a camera away from your face, viewing a small screen (perhaps in sunshine) and trying to capture critical shots...:-)
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Fancy trying to cover a wedding or a Premier League fixture holding a camera away from your face, viewing a small screen (perhaps in sunshine) and trying to capture critical shots...:-)
On a bus on the Amalfi coast a few weeks back I was getting some good pictures (even through the windows) using my dSLR. I was using it as a point and shoot and sorted out good and bad photos later. Person behind with a point and shoot camera was cursing - their camera was not focussing quick enough to take many photos at all. The dSLR as you'd expect was finding this no problem - I even showed off by taking a few shots per second ;-)
So more reasons for having the dSLR apart from excellent pictures (even if then downsized to HD TV resolution) due to a decent lens and large sensor. Good in low light and fast focussing.
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> On a bus on the Amalfi coast a few weeks back I was getting some good pictures
all i got was a parking ticket in Positano!
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We used the local bus for 6 Euros for the day from outside the hotel (24 hr ticket). To/from hotel too. Others booked trips via the holiday company for more like 40-50 Euro each and had to get up early to be taken to Sorrento first.... we got the bus at the hotel at 9am :-)
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>>> Rember with cameras it is not about spec it is about qualility. <<<
You speak with Vulcan logic comrade, trouble is its wasted on some Earthlings :)
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