Recommendations for digital camera for around £250

Recommendations for digital camera for around £250

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ehasler

Original Poster:

8,567 posts

290 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
quotequote all
Can anyone recommend a decent digital camera for around £250? My brother is after one for Christmas, and wants some Sony jobbie that costs £600 but for what he wants to use if for, I reckon he doesn't need to spend anything more than £250.

I'm a bit of a Canon fan, so I reckon the A70 or A80 would be a good choice, but just wondered what everyone else thought?

.Mark

11,104 posts

283 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
quotequote all
I have the Fuji FinePix S304z, excellent little camera for point and shoot idiots like me, it may come in at a shade under £300 though.
It's predecessor is still available at around £250 it's the 2800z or some such, I have seen it recently on www.novatech.co.uk

pete

1,599 posts

291 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
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I've got a Canon A70. For about £250 it's good deal, and at $280US it was even better! Not so small or light, but it's got great usability and a full set of manual overrides should you want them. It takes AA batteries which is handy should you ever run out of juice miles away from a charger. Picture quality has been well up to scratch.

If you can afford it the A80 is supposed to be even better, with the same sensor and image processing as the S50.

Cheers,
Pete

agent006

12,058 posts

271 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
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We've got a Canon A20 and it's nice enough. I can't really see what a digital camera could gain apart from more resolution or being an SLR.

simpo two

87,066 posts

272 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
quotequote all
Well we're all going to recommend our own cameras 'cos we thought they were the best! So blatantly joining in - I bought this as I found it for £229 at Amazon and loved the cuteness.

www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/stylus300.html

Only major thing is that the AF is poor in low light.

Pete Cros

285 posts

286 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
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If you want to compare specs, try
www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/
you can select and compare specs by using the 'compare & contrast digital cameras' bottom left of home page.

.Mark

11,104 posts

283 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
quotequote all
To be honest the reason for choosing mine was the optical zoom.
I was at the time using a Sony Mavica which stored images on Floppy Disks (it was a freebie) and was in fact an excellent camera I took loads of motorsports shots and the beauty was it was an instant picture. What wasn't quite so good was using bleedin' floppy drives as a media and it was only 350k(?) pixels good enough for 640x480 at very most.
My new one is about 3.24MP and good for 1600x1200 (I think) but not so good at those instant pictures although some time spent playing with the manual setting may change that.

Pete Cros

285 posts

286 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
quotequote all
Optical zoom, I'm looking at the Olympus C750, 10x optical, only 4 million pixels though. The price varies between £300 and £370, the difference appears to be whats included, e.g. charger and batteries.

.Mark

11,104 posts

283 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
quotequote all
Good zoom, the Mavica had 10x the Fuji I have now is only 6x but I really didn't want to go too far over the £300.
If I ever get any better, I'm tempted by one of these digital SLR jobbies, although on my learning curve this is quite some way off!

simpo two

87,066 posts

272 months

Tuesday 16th December 2003
quotequote all
.Mark said:
although on my learning curve this is quite some way off!

For me it's a money curve!

Graham.J

5,420 posts

266 months

Wednesday 17th December 2003
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.Mark said:
It's predecessor is still available at around £250 it's the 2800z or some such


Fantastic little camera, I use it for all of my photography as I'm just learning.

Jessops are actually doing it for £170 at the moment www.jessops.co.uk/shop.cfm

Graham

PS. Can't help with what camera to get as I'm not experienced enough...yet

>> Edited by Graham.J on Wednesday 17th December 00:34

kojak69

4,546 posts

260 months

Wednesday 17th December 2003
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Whatever you buy, why not buy it off the net, such as Amazon etc.. I bought my sony p10 for £284 from comet on line, who price matched amazon. They said any problems i could take bact to a local store. The cheapest i could get it anywhere on the high st was £350. I think jessops was £450 at the time.

XM5ER

5,094 posts

255 months

Friday 19th December 2003
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I bought a Sony DSC P8 6 months ago for £300, will be much cheaper now.

3 Megapixels, all the functionality you need for general use. Very easy to use and no duff pics so far, very pleased with it on the whole.

ledger

1,063 posts

290 months

Friday 19th December 2003
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I have an A70 which I'm pleased with, but a guy that works for me just picked up an IXUS 400 (? 4 megapixels, 3X optical zoom, v v small) for about that money, v good deal

Podie

46,645 posts

282 months

Friday 19th December 2003
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I'd tell him to wait till after Christmas... bound to get a better deal in the sales...

focused

1,394 posts

289 months

Friday 19th December 2003
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Pentax Optio S £250 - £300

>> Edited by focused on Friday 19th December 18:10