Can anyone recommend a good digi camera around the £100 mark?

Question

I'm going to buy a digital camera for the first time and would like to use it a festival this weekend, can anyone recommend a godd cheap one. Those Fuji ones aroung the £80 mark, would they be any good?
I suppose what I need is one with a zoom (what's the difference between digital and optical?) to take photos from the stage and a decent megapixel size. Is it possible to get these around the £100 mark? Help!

Answer 1

The Fuji F-series are good cameras. I am very impressed by the image quality.

Since you asked about digital vs. optical zoom...

Digital Zoom vs. Optical Zoom

Optical zoom is good and digital zoom sucks. Optical zoom is "real" zoom done with the camera lens. Digital zoom is really just a way to enlarge pixels and degrade the image. Ignore it completely when you are comparing cameras.

Here are three sample pictures taken with my Canon Powershot SD900, which is a 10.0 megapixel camera. All three pictures are taken with the optical zoom maxed out at 3X or 23.1 mm, which is the equivalent of 111.6 mm after calculating for the lens crop factor. There is no image processing at all done with any of these pictures. All were taken using the self-timer to (hopefully) eliminate camera shake as the camera sat on the top of my car. (Okay, I'll use a tripod next time, but I think they are pretty sharp images.) Please click on "View All Sizes" and then view each image at the largest size available, which should be 3648 x 2736 pixels. The first picture (3xOpticalFull) is the full frame image at 3x optical zoom, or 111 mm. The second picture (4xDigitalFull) is the result of zooming out the additional 4x in digital zoom, for an equivalent of 444 mm. The third picture (3xOpticalCrop) is actually a cropped version of the original image, maintaining the full pixel dimension. In other words, I accomplished the "digital zoom" entirely in the computer and not in the camera. If you compare the full-sized images, I think it is immediately obvious that the third picture is far superior in any aspect that you care to examine. I think it is much sharper (Check the tower and the antenna up near the top of the frame.), has better color, and less digital noise and artifact (Check the plain sky and the shadows on the building.). These images are all tagged "digital zoom."

3xOpticalFull: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/459603923/
4xDigitalFull: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/459603931/
3xOpticalCrop: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/459603939/

In other words, please ignore any claims of superiority based on "digital zoom" when you choose your camera. It is only "in camera cropping" and it is not anywhere near as good as "in computer cropping." Any attempts at cropping a digitally-zoomed picture will be a waste of time.

Answer 2

Before considering the Fuji, check out the price of Xm-Picture memory cards since the 1 or 2 gb ones can be expensive. On the other hand, the following discussion offers a more "affordable" all-around alternative.

Even though I personally own this ultra compact camera, I would still like to highly recommend the purchase of a Nikon Coolpix L10 for the following reasons:

1. Besides taking well-exposed hi-quality 5 megapixel pictures, it uses a standard set of rechargeable double AA batteries which last a very long time - 300 shots per set of rechargeables;
2. Has a 3x optical zoom;
3. The flash setting for "red-eye" correction is on the navigator wheel and not within a submenu;
4. It's very small and light;
5. Uses inexpensive SD memory cards;
6. The digital video feature takes wonderful "sound" videos which are noise free. It records the piano very well with it's built-in microphone;
7. It comes with a USB 2.0 transfer cable which you connect to your USB computer port;
8. Has tripod mount on bottom of camera;
9. And the price is a mere $119 [sold at Samy's Camera - www.samys.com, and Staples.com; $99 at amazon.com]

Review(s) can be found at www.amazon.com [Query: "Nikon Coolpix L10" along with pictures provided by satisfied purchasers.]

Good luck!

Answer 3

I can't recommend a brand (because I don't know enough aobut it!), but I would suggest that anything in excess of about 3.5 megapixels will be more than adequate for your needs. Also, digital zoom is not really a zoom - it just narrows the focus on the subject and expands it thereby costing dearly in clarity, whereas optical zoom uses a telescope type device to actually magnify the image of the subject. Optical zoom is good, digital zoom is nigh on worthless.

Edit: I reckon Angel is on the money, and if you can get the same deal she got you're winning. And she deserves the 10 points!

Answer 4

I have no experience of Fuji but the Kodak Easyshare range is excellent. It's very important to have optical zoom as well as digital (don't ask me why, a techie friend told me so and my camera is great). Just buy the highest specification you can afford and don't forget a nice big memory card.

Answer 5

Your thought of a Fuji is a good one. The F32fd and F20 have been very good for the money and should be in your price range.
Zooms are usually 3x optical (ignore digital zoom).

Answer 6

Look around but Olympus are a very good make and i have one and its been excellent, was a bit over a hundred, but you get what you pay for. They all the technically proficient and i think just what you are looking for. Try a decent camera shop, not just places like jessops or currys because they don't necessarily have the expertise you are after.

Answer 7

yes i have just bought a Kodak Easyshare C763, it was £99 from Currys, it has 7 megapixels and has got one of the best picture qualities i have seen (Optical zoom is the one that really matters) this one has 8x optical zoom and gets really close, you can also crop your pictures on the camera after taking them to get a beter picture.

Answer 8

my suggestion
go to yahoo shopping
digital cameras
digital camera GUIDE
be sure to check titles on the left side
the guide should answer your questions

Answer 9

i think this is what you need:
http://uk.shopmania.com/shopping~online-digital-cameras~buy-samsung-digimax-s700~p-1455737.html

if not, you can find there others cheap digital cameras