Sub £100 - Digital Camera advice! :)

[andog]

right, from looking at some of the photography threads in here, i know some of you guys will know your stuff! :)

I have £100 to spend on a digital camera (well, £40, but, i have a £60 amazon voucher so this camera must be available from there! :))

Narrowed it down to these:
Canon Powershot A310 Digital Camera ( 3.2MP ) - £121.99
Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001JZRGC/thedvdforums-21)

Pentax Optio 33LF Digital Camera [3MP 3xOptical] - £99.99
Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001XIZSK/thedvdforums-21)

Nikon Coolpix 2200 Digital Camera ( 2MP , 3 x Optical ) - £99.99
Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001D9OH6/thedvdforums-21)

Kodak LS633 Digital Camera [3MP 3xOptical] - £99.99
Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008VE1S/thedvdforums-21)

hopefully someone can help me narrow it down further :(

sorry for being a camera numpty :(

[edit] this one looks good as well:
Konica Minolta Dimage X31 Digital Camera ( 3.2MP , 3 x Optical ) - £118.57
Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002HBLL8/thedvdforums-21)

[andog]

ack, suppose this should have gone into suppliers perhaps? - in my defence tho mods :) it will get more responses in here and then i can buy it through the affiliated link :)

[dtsrules]

canon, nickon or pentax in no particular order

[andog]

cheers DtsRules - any opinions on this one:
Konica Minolta Dimage X31 Digital Camera ( 3.2MP , 3 x Optical ) - £118.57
Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002HBLL8/thedvdforums-21)

[iluz]

The Nikon 2200 is £89.99 from Boots.com (http://tracker.tradedoubler.com/click?p=4907&a=60823&g=38424&url=http://www.boots.com/shop/product_details.jsp?productid=1046870)

Fantastic camera, few photos I've taken with it here (http://www.hot16.com/photo/index.php) - I'm very much a beginner too but I'm happy with 'em so far :)

[Tempest]

I know it's not from where you wanted..... but...
Superdrug are selling a smart modern 2Mp Fuji at half price right now.
http://www.superdrug.com/bps.php

[thescrounger]

I know it's not from where you wanted..... but...
Superdrug are selling a smart modern 2Mp Fuji at half price right now.
http://www.superdrug.com/bps.php

Looks a bit pants and no optical zoom. :(

[jonathan_d]

out of those posted i would choose the kodak with 3x optical zoom or the pentax.
the kodak has got a battery and charger with it which saves you getting that seperately.
don't forgot to get some extra memory though!

[Tempest]

Looks a bit pants and no optical zoom. :(

What you want for £49?

Cream with a cherry on top :D

[andog]

are Pentax a big brand in the camera world? the thing that worried me was the comment here: http://www.thedvdforums.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=4253507&postcount=7 about it having "no optical viewfinder though - bit of a showstopper IMHO...." - what does this mean?

also, will what kind of memory card they take make a big impact ie. what's the difference - is one likely to become "mainstream" and everything else fall by the wayside?

Is there somewhere that also tells you how many photos, various amounts of memory will hold... ie. 16mb SD memory will hold 30 photos (??)

(thanks for everyones response so far!!! :) :bow: )

[andog]

I know it's not from where you wanted..... but...
Superdrug are selling a smart modern 2Mp Fuji at half price right now.
http://www.superdrug.com/bps.php Thanks for the suggestion :) going to get this Amazon voucher used up tho :)

[cjanderson]

The Nikon 2200 is £89.99 from Boots.com (http://tracker.tradedoubler.com/click?p=4907&a=60823&g=38424&url=http://www.boots.com/shop/product_details.jsp?productid=1046870)

Fantastic camera, few photos I've taken with it here (http://www.hot16.com/photo/index.php) - I'm very much a beginner too but I'm happy with 'em so far :)

I've got the same one, taken some pics, not got round to loading up software yet though. Seems good though, and was £67 or so after boots did 25% off.

[andog]

too many options and each has its own thing that makes it stand out :(

frantically reading through reviews :(

quick question (i have posted this in another thread too so apologies :() but which is better - if any - XD / SD / MMC?

[gothmog]

cheers DtsRules - any opinions on this one:
Konica Minolta Dimage X31 Digital Camera ( 3.2MP , 3 x Optical ) - £118.57
Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002HBLL8/thedvdforums-21)

Plus:
The Minolta X range of cameras are excellent at what they do, they are small light and unobtrusive. The are responsive and have a powerful flash, it's a perfect pub/social camera. Folded optics = fast startup time (no zoom to extend) and when you drop it after a few you won't break the zoom mechanism so easily ;)

Minus:
Overall image quality is fine for what it is and can, it cannot however compete with bigger cameras (this is true of all ultra compacts), so if you fancy yourself as the next David Bailey you may want to look elsewhere ;)
It's a fully automatic camera with no extra controls outside of exposure compensation, easy to use but a pain in the bum in tough conditions :)

Really it depends what you want it for, I have a Dimage Xt and a 300D, different cameras for different purposes :)

-- Jon

[andog]

Right! :)

last question!!!!!!! :)

What do people think of these pictures:
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/kodak/ls633-review/gallery.shtml

and why shouldnt' i go for the Kodak - there's a review here (with pictures etc) - should i expect better from a 3megapixel camera?:
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/kodak/ls633-review/index.shtml

[andog]

thanks Jon, my main problem has been finding example photos from each of the cameras i'm looking at :(

i would love to see what the Pentax can do - i would also love to hear what iluz thinks of the Kodak pictures i posted above in comparison with what his Nikon can do...

at the moment, its a fight to the death mainly with the Kodak / Nikon and Pentax i think :(

[gothmog]

Ugh, some of the example pics from the Kodak look pretty awful!

Take this shot (http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/kodak/ls633-review/100_0021.JPG) any optical merits the camera may have have been totally wasted by over compressing the picture and some nasty looking over-sharpening.

I don't have many Xt pics online (the X31 should be similar, same lens and sensor) just this one gallery (www.pbase.com/gothmog/paintball) that's hardly ideal!

-- Jon

[raymondlin]

HAve they not got the Canon A60 left? that was £99 when i got it a few months ago, best £99 i ever spent.

[andog]

i wish they had as i really wanted that - after all the recommendations etc :( but no, afraid not :(

[raymondlin]

Can you not stretch a bit more the A70 can be had for about £140, and the A80 at £175 on the net.

[andog]

has to be from Amazon unfortunately... cheers anyways :)

anyways! i think i've found the one i'm gonna go for!!!

this is some samples from the Pentax!!! think they look great myself! opinions welcome! :)

http://www.pbase.com/cameras/pentax/optio_33lf

[shenbop]

i'm in the same situation as you andog. Have been looking at the same range of cameras you are, still not sure which one to get though.
One question though about digital cameras in general, why do the backgrounds and skies etc sometimes looked completely messed up in digital photos? i've seen it loads in photos i've seen on the net, likethis one (http://www.pbase.com/image/30112897). Does it come out like that when you print it? :thinking:

[andog]

not sure - i was impatient and just ordered it by the way! :)

will let you know how i get on / post some piccies when i get it :)

Cheers to everyone who helped :clap:

i also got a very good deal on some 2000mAH batteries & a uniross charger (£6'ish!!!)- will post it in the bargain forum if you're interested :)

[gothmog]

Shenbop, that's digital noise, the bane of small sensor point and shoot digicams. How bad it is is proportion to the sensitivity of the sensor, which is defined by the ISO speed rating, in the pic above it is 200 and as you can see it's pretty bad there most small cams will let you set it to 100 or even 50 and this will reduce the amount of noise, the trade off being you'll need twice (or four times!) as much light for the same picture.

There are plenty of applications that you can run noisy photos through to clean them up and most work quite well, have a google for neatimage, noiseninja and noiseware.

For example:

Before..
http://www.pbase.com/image/29645103.jpg

After..
http://www.pbase.com/image/29645213.jpg

These shots are at ISO 3200, 16x more sensitive than the ISO 200 shot. Notice how relatively little noise there is in the first shot considering this, this is one of the advantages of the large sensor of a DSLR, much much less noise for a given ISO value.

-- Jon