Digital Camera Advice??

[Shandy]

Hi all,

I'm after a bit of advice on which digital camera to buy, my current camera is a Canon Ixus70 which died at Silverstone at the weekend after 2+ years of supurb service. It was a great little camera easy to use and took high enough quality pictures for me. The only downer i found with it was the delay in pressing the button to it taking a picture (a real pain in the arse if your trying to take pictures of fast moving stuff!!).

Anyway the lense motor/gears is all knackered and its almost the cost of a new one to get it repaired, so i'm thinking of buying new. Any recomendations on whats good on the market at the moment?? Budget wise i don't really want to spend above £150............

Cheers,

Shandy

[fatbloke]

all of the panasonic lumix range are good and have good optical zoom

[Space Cadet]

I had an Ixus 50 (5 megapixels) for years and was really happy with it. Beginning of last year I bought a Lumix FX100 (12 megapixels) which was really highly rated at the time and I can honestly say I thought the Ixus took better photos. I've moved on to SLR's now so the Lumix is fine for the odd BBQ shot, but if I was going to buy another compact I would definitely go for an Ixus again.

[LouSCannon]

I use an Ixus 75 as a backup and when I can't carry my SLR. Superb little camera and well worth the money.

You risk delays with most small digital cameras especially around that price range, best you can look to compensate is going for one with a good lens. Both the Ixus and Lumix ranges are very good.

Steer clear of Sony, the 'Carl Zeisse' lens is awful and just a marketing ploy.

If you can stretch to about 170 you can get the Ixus 100 IS, which is an excellent camera.

[Albie]

My Ixus died strangely in Tenerife and gave years of service. Just went dead not dropped. :eyepopping::eyepopping:

[bex]

Canon Ixus/Powershot or Panasonic Lumix as said will serve you well as a compact; if you want something to catch fast action realistically you'll need to move up to an SLR and start playing with shutter speeds.

[mfosker]

I love my Nikon Coolpix, but it's too old to recommend. I would however recommend that you don't buy anything from Pixmania.
I bought a camera as a present from them, and when it went wrong I sent it back via their returns process, and it came back even more broken. When I tried to complain I just got exactly the same stock response to return it to them and the second time they told me that it not a manufacturing fault and that I would have to pay them for examining it before they would send it back.
There is no way to contact a real person when stuff goes wrong, and I had to post it to France (twice).

[Stafford]

Just got the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7, seems pretty good and does do HD vid as well. Down side is that there is no eye piece to view through and using the screen is not the best way to get the shot at times.
Results in B&W mode
http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q297/stafford23/S2R1000/800x600a.jpg

Or colour
http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q297/stafford23/S2R1000/800x600c.jpg

[SlowLearner]

I recommend the Lumix range too.

As the models change all the time you can get a bargain with 'last years model'

One point on speed of shooting, buy a FAST SD card, makes all the difference.

Steve

PS, Bex is right about the digital SLR being the option for Quality and Speed, myself being a complete amatuer camera wise, not wanting to spend all that money, and not wanting something as big as an SLR, I bought a Canon SX1 recently and am very pleased with it.

Bigger than a compact, so you cant put it in your pocket, but very good lens zoom and quality.

Steve

[spacemonkey]

Another vote for Lumix TZ7. I splashed out on one and use it extensively. The HD video is only 720p but on my 46" Samsung it is better quality than the normal TV... Pictures are good, and the night shot and night portrait work well. Only downside is it eats batteries when doing a lot of HD vid work- playback or filming. Also the HD vids are on AVCH Lite or whatever it is, so finding editing software is a pain, and you need at least a dual core processor to play with the vids. But the quality is so worth it... Lense is the 35mm equivelant of a 25-300mm zoom, which is damn incredible! Standing at the bottom of the KL Petronas twin towers I was able to zoom into the baubles at the top in vid mode. At night. The steady shot works very well too. It comes with the leads to plug straight into a TV or AV receiver so you can use the camera to playback the vids/pics direct on a TV. Get a fast SD card as mentioned- I have a Class 6 16gb - the Class relates to the speed of read/write- 6 being pretty damn good! Pick up a genuine spare battery and you'll be good. Generic batteries do not work, as in a lot of new cameras, because the originals have a ID chip inside. No chip- no work..


Please bear in mind these are photobucket hostings, so quality drastically reduced. Original pics on the PC/TV are MUCH better..

Night exposure experiments:

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/spacemonkey_mk1/Malaysia%202009/Picture003.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/spacemonkey_mk1/Malaysia%202009/Picture006-1.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/spacemonkey_mk1/Malaysia%202009/Picture044.jpg

Night portraight:
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/spacemonkey_mk1/Malaysia%202009/Picture103-1.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/spacemonkey_mk1/Malaysia%202009/Picture167.jpg

Bright sun:
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/spacemonkey_mk1/Malaysia%202009/Picture076-1.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/spacemonkey_mk1/Malaysia%202009/Picture147.jpg

Night video on youtube (not mine) watch in HD..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Got6d4PIRQ

Day vid (not mine):
http://www.vimeo.com/5848000

HD vids a bit jerky via streaming, but you can see the clarity well. Real vids are not jerky of course..

[Redkite]

I have recently bought the Panasonic (Lumix) DMC-FT1 which is small, waterproof, shockproof and has a (good) Zeiss lens. Was getting fed up with my SLR taking up all the room in my tankbag so went for something smaller that I can be a bit careless with.
Picture quality really is excellent for the type of camera and I am very happy with it.