What camera £80-100?

[Johnnytheboy]

Please don't laugh at me, photo gods of PH.

Business is booming, I've just been awarded the above budget to go out and buy a new camera.

Our website features quite a lot of images, mostly taken by me. Current camera is a tired Canon Powershot A620 that really likes to use the flash, or make pics really blurry instead.

Any suggestions as to what is best in that price range? Or is it all much of a muchness?

[Simpo Two]

Well clearly you need a Hasselhof K9000, Steinbeck-Nokkor f1.0 and Mecablast T54i lighting rig

But seriously, first, I believe most portable telephony devices have quite decent cameras built in these days. Dunno, mine still uses coal. But if you have an iPad/Phone-thing is that an option first?

[Johnnytheboy]

I've been asked to go out and buy a camera.

[PleasantPeasant]

If you want to buy new, this compact has pretty good reviews.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ3EB-K

Retails for about £95

[Simpo Two]

Johnnytheboy said:

I've been asked to go out and buy a camera.

Does the mong not have an £80 compact of his own?

[Johnnytheboy]

Simpo Two said:

Johnnytheboy said:

I've been asked to go out and buy a camera.

Does the mong not have an £80 compact of his own?

I've been asked to buy a camera for myself for work. The first post does make it quite clear enough. For most people.

Thanks to the other person to post who made a positive suggestion.

[Simpo Two]

I appreciate you are simply following orders, but the logic behind the post is flawed. Why do you absolutely HAVE to buy a cheap compact even though you both already almost certainly have devices that will do the same job? It won't be any better than the photos already on your website which seem perfectly adequate for the job.

NB: Specific names are lower case (Linnaeus et al)

[LongQ]

Johnnytheboy said:

I've been asked to buy a camera for myself for work. The first post does make it quite clear enough. For most people.

Thanks to the other person to post who made a positive suggestion.

For the budget I think you may struggle to find any serious improvement over the Canon you have in terms of general photography. As Simpo has said the photos on the web site look quite suitable - at least to me.

I agree that flash (at least on-camera flash) would not be ideal BUT that will be just as true for any camera one can imagine in the budget price range you are tasked with. They may be excellent cameras in many ways BUT the flash will most likely be very compromised for taking the sort of shots you have on the web site.

So one has to ask ... is that the sort of subject matter (but maybe in darker offices) that you need to capture? If so there may be other approaches to the challenge that would give you a more flexible way to work and greater opportunity to get the shots you want. (maybe even within or close to the budget!)

It may be possible to find a new and recent 'budget' camera that will take great images in low light but somehow I doubt it - at least in so far as it would suit your purposes.

You could consider buying an older used dslr. Might get near the budget but would probably suffer the same compromises that you have now as well as being bulkier.

Given that I assume the main objective is to take shots for internet use (if that's not the main objective then what are the other uses intended to be?) you don't need a huge resolution per se but finding a lower resolution higher quality (for low light work) pocketable camera may be a challenge, even if the budget was much higher.

You could get something like a used Canon S90 for the budget these days. That would not avoid the low light/flash challenge entirely but would offer excellent potential image quality for the money. If you could then add a flash (used, probably cheap Chinese make for the low pricing) that will respond to a flash from the camera you could, potentially, get a system that would give you low light interior flexibility at something close to the budget but with reasonable quality results for web use.

Simpo's suggestion for a mobile phone is not unrealistic these days. I recently bought a low end Nokia Windows phone with a basic camera and the results of a few tests show that it can be quite surprisingly capable in the right situation. However, not in low light and it has no flash. I doubt it would up to much even if it had flash if set to work in low light. What I paid for it would be within your budget (just).

Taking a slightly different tack - a bit of careful shopping in eBay might get you something like a Canon Powershot G9. These have a proper flash hot shoe as well as a built in flash. That would mean that a little more careful shopping might get you a decent external flash to go with it. By "decent" I mean on that offers bounce flash capabilities that would probably suit your dark office needs quite well since most offices have relatively pale ceilings.

Some thoughts coming at it from a slightly different direction.

[Johnnytheboy]

There's no point me having an overly complex camera system as it'll get bashed about in our van.

My comment about the flash was trying to say that the Canon seems to require (or automate) the flash in really quite reasonable light.

The pics on our website are scaled down, but we do use hi-res shots for other purposes.

My reservation about the existing Canon is that its hit rate of taking a decent shot when I just point and click is lower than it was with the crappy old 2003 Kodak that we had before.

And to answer Simpo's questions about using a smartphone or tablet, my work phone camera is crap, and as above a tablet would last about ten minutes before getting sat on or something.

Still got one recommendation for a new camera between £80-100, so that's something.

[Johnnytheboy]

PleasantPeasant said:

If you want to buy new, this compact has pretty good reviews.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ3EB-K

Retails for about £95

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BET0YPC/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&psc=1&s=electronics

£75 in purple! And good reviews by the look of things, as you say.

[Simpo Two]

Thank you LongQ for putting the typing in behind my posts which were summaries of same but simply in my head

Hope you find something that works for you OP.

[ExPat2B]

Just because this wouldn't be pistonheads without someone making an inappropriate suggestion.

Nikon D50 Digital SLR Camera Body + 1.8 50mm AF lens

http://r.ebay.com/Gl122X

http://r.ebay.com/i3GCjc

Vastly superior low capability to any other option listed, and has full manual control. I will just be off to another thread now to join 300BHPton in suggesting a V8 Chevrolet in a "what shopping car thread" as it is an excellent drift car.

[LongQ]

Simpo Two said:

Thank you LongQ for putting the typing in behind my posts which were summaries of same but simply in my head

My pleasure Sir!

Or at least I think it was ...

[LongQ]

Johnnytheboy said:

PleasantPeasant said:

If you want to buy new, this compact has pretty good reviews.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ3EB-K

Retails for about £95

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BET0YPC/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&psc=1&s=electronics

£75 in purple! And good reviews by the look of things, as you say.

You should buy it and come back in a few weeks to tell us how you get on with it.

[tenohfive]

Johnnytheboy said:

My comment about the flash was trying to say that the Canon seems to require (or automate) the flash in really quite reasonable light.

What about using a tripod instead then? If you're happy with the image quality of your existing Canon and it's just it's ability to get the shot in low light then a simple tripod seems like the easy answer - turn the flash off, use the tripod and because it's on a stable platform the longer shutter speeds that the camera will automatically use won't result in blurry shots.

From a quick look at your website it seems that you've got no shortage of natural light; this seems the easiest way to use it.

[beancaker]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Pinhole-Camera-Kikke...

Well within budget, and no focus issues.