digital camera's

There's a great review site that does REALLY indepth analysis as well as comparisons.

Recently bought a Casio EX-110 which has been great

Its small
Takes AA's (only 2 !), which seem to last a while
Has a Big screen with a good hard face to avoid damage
Takes photos quickly after pressing button (old Canon was slow)
Very easy to use and easy menu (unlike Canon)
6.0 Megapixel, 3 x optical zoom
Relatively cheap

It also has an anti-shake function which has been great for taking photos of other 4by's for ideas while driving (naughty- naughty) .

Steve

Hi there,
I am a great fan of Nikon mainly cos they only make cameras. I have 4 Nikons and very happy with all. I am also looking at the new P1 as it has underwater capabilities.
Check out ebay before you buy as they are selling all the new range for up to 1/2 price of local shops but they come from Hong Kong.
Phantom

Hey Simple,

Every man and his dog will have thier own opinion to offer with regards to Digital Cameras - take some of the advice but in the end go with what you like to hold and use. In saying that, here's my opinion:

Ok first, you're doing the right thing when it comes to lots of optical zoom. Digital zoom is cr*p! Secondly, the megapixels thing isn't as big a deal as the shops will have you believe. Your needs may require a high pixel rate but generally speaking most people will be quite happy with 3-4 megapixels. In other words - don't pay more just to get a higher res camera. Does that make sense? Pay more for features that count - like optical zoom etc. Thirdly - I have always bought Canon and have never been let down - thier quality is as as good as it gets in my opinion. Third: Power - convential batteries are good if you are likely to get caught away from power. You can just buy another coupla AA's or whatever. Battery packs seem to last longer but.

A nice compact- easy to use camera? Canon IXUS 40 - the olnly let down is the 3x optical zoom (as good as you'll prolly get in that size.) It's my other halfs camera and she loves it - Me? I still use an old 35mm SLR.

Hope that's some help! Cheers
Scoey

Hi Simple, Ive got a Nikon Coolpix and have had it for the last two years. While not up to SLR standard, particully night action shots, it takes great been there shots. I certainly do not regret the extended memory or the compact size over my old Pentax SLR and these days only use the Nikon especially on trips.
Regards, Peter B.

I have a Pentax Optio WP. Which is a waterproof camera, very small, has 5mp with optical zoom. All other programs and features are pretty much the same as the others, and being waterproof means it is also sand proof, dust proof, and I have a little bit of piece of mind when i take it away on adventures!

Cheers

Russ

Small cameras usually have a very limited flash capacity. If you are likely to want to use a flash where your subject is more them a metre from your subject then you should check how effective the flash is.

Try very hard to get a camera that uses AA batteries rather then a specially made battery that only fits that make and model of camera.

I have a Konica Minolta Z3, it has a x 12 zoom on top of the x 5 digital zoom.
I think this camera is great in low light conditions and normally have no need to use a flash indoors.

Greetings

Go here Steves Digicams S4 Review and read away.

Regards

Paul

HI simple,
If you like it simple I would consider the Kodak Z740 I know a lot of people wont agree but I have been around cameras for a lot of years and I have one of these little rippers and can't recommend it highly enough.

Been using Nikon Coolpix's now for a couple of years.

I bought a 5200 because it took SD cards (as does everything else I own), had good resolution and best of all because of the menu system.

I figured if I found a camera that I could use without even reading the moaners annual then the wife would cope with it too.

6000 pics later (according to the counter at the end of the trip just gone) and I still haven't read the manual.

Takes great pics, is soooo easy to use and is compact. I'd like more optical zoom but 3 x was all that was available at the time.

The only advantage of going to higher resolutions that I can see (above 5MP) is that when you get into the early stages of digital zoom you are still shooting high res pics.

If you don't know already all a digital zoom really does is crop the outside of the picture off. This means that when you are looking at a quarter of the image you had in the view finder at full optical zoom on a 4MP camera the image will end up being a 1MP image. So a 7MP camera will have a more usable digital zoom than a 4mp camera.

Hope thats of some help.

Dave

Fuji S602Z is pretty good. missus has my old one, I have a Canon 300D now... SLR.
Would never go back!

i think im the only person left using a minolta 35mm auto w/ zoom lens, oh well back to the box brownie.i dont like the digitals, and i dont mind waiting for the pictures to be developed. cheers

have got a canon powershot90 and agree, optical zoom is most important.

must disagree with a couple of posts regarding batteries v power packs.
mine has a power pack and is easily recharged with the inverter, i wouldn't like to rely on having good spare batteries to find the kids have used the last in their torch.

Lots of replies there simple but one thing was not yet mentioned.
Most cameras will come with the smallest memory card there is, my Olympus C55zoom came with only 16Mb which equates to less than 10 HQ pics.
Set some money aside to buy a larger card, I bought a 512Mb card for $99.- and this gives me storage for about 400 HQ pics or 12min video. Certainly enough for a day or two of shooting until I can download the lot onto my laptop.

Have fun with your search and, whatever you buy, it will be surpassed by a bigger, better, flashier and cheaper model in 3 months time. That's the way it goes with these gadgets. I wonder how long they can keep that up. My first digital had a 'whopping' 2 Megapixel and I bought it only 3 years ago.
Klaus

went through all this not long ago and with the help of wolfie I picked the Cannon S2IS , very very happy with it , easy to use and is a ausom camera

simple,

This might also be a factor in to which camera to buy.

How easy is it to down load the photos to a computer. The Kodak we have has t go through a loading dock but the Canon just plugs via a cable into the computer.

Wayne

Hi there simple,

Suggest DP Review as a great site with comparisons and reviews of most of the major brands. Although there are so many cameras coming out, they don't have reviews on them all - and they don't have one on the S4 - but I love the pivoting design which is the same as the old Coolpix 995 which I have - and which I have converted to an Infrared camera. It has a nice flexible zoom range, much like the Canon S2IS someone else mentioned in response.

I have a Digital Camera Buyer's Guide on my website if you're interested.

These days most of the brands have reasonable offers across the range - work out your budget, follow folks advice on here by working out how much memory, how many spare batteries etc., that you need, HOLD THE CAMERAS IN YOUR HAND and take some shots, see how it works with your PC, and when you've assessed it all, buy it and be happy that theres always a newer one being released, and the prices will keep coming down.

Happy shooting
Andrew.