Sub £100 digi cam for Christmas present

[AndyT77]

My other half (of 11 months) keeps harping on about wanting a DSLR camera, which i just can't afford. So for Christmas i want to get her the best i can afford which as the title suggests is less than £100. Any suggestions? I noticed in a red top today somewhere was offering the Canon A490 for £50! Could use the rest of the cash for other presents such as nice underwear (for her), and hopefully put them both to good use.

[curtisl]

I have just been asked the same question by the sister in law and this looks like a good bet. The bells and whistles might be wasted by a girl that just wants to turn it on and take a picture but looks like a good bit of kit coming from a canon man myself.

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Dig...

[cbcbcb]

You might find a Canon 300D body on ebay for 100 pounds

[LongQ]

You don't say whether your other half of 11 months is a relationship by way of partnership or marriage. Potentially that information could be of material interest to the outcome here but lets move past that for now.

Your other half has, it seems, asked for a DSLR and therefore presumably has some sort of inkling about the differences between typs of cameras. Probably also has a rough idea about where prices start. Do you think there may also be a genuine interest in relatively serious photography or the camera for taking snaps on nights out? (Or the dog or the cat or whatever .....)

I ask because a request for a DSLR being fulfilled by a pocket point and shoot, no matter how well that point and shoot performs, may produce a negative reaction. Perhaps an extreme one. You might want to consider this before you rush out to buy. Might be wrth ensuring that both the camera and the underwear, assuming they are still merchantable, can be returned for refund. Just in case.

Be sure to keep us updated about your decision making process and how the exchange of gifts turns out come the day of festivities.

Pictures, or even video, would be most welcome - so don't forget to buy a large capacity memory card to go with the camera. Better still get someone in to make a record of events.



Good luck.

Edited by LongQ on Thursday 11th November 02:43

[AndyT77]

Thanks Longq, i should have made it clear that she has actually agreed to a point and shoot camera until we can afford something more advanced. She loves taking pictures with her half decent camera phone, and they always look better than what i could take (don't know how?).

[LongQ]

AndyT77 said:

Thanks Longq, i should have made it clear that she has actually agreed to a point and shoot camera until we can afford something more advanced. She loves taking pictures with her half decent camera phone, and they always look better than what i could take (don't know how?).

Ah, OK.

I'll cancel the pre-order for Popcorn then.

It's always useful to present the fuller picture.

Most cameras will take a half decent snap in reasonable light and most offer the ability to play with the settings a bit to tweak what comes out towards personal preferences in terms of underlying colour and sharpness as well using some sort of 'style' settings for particular purposes - like landscape, portrait, black and white and so on 'modes'.

Beyond that it comes down to how well the flash works, how small it is (if you want to carry it at all times ....), how quickly it responds to be told what to do, what software it comes with and so on. I'm not sure there is much differentiation across the ranges but under £100 thee is not much room in the manufacturing costs to differentiate one product form another.

The 'A' series Canons are cheaper than the Ixus range mainlt because they use ordinary batteries rather than dedicated Li-On units. That tends to mean they are larger, to accommodate the batteries with desgn size set by that need. On the other hand that makes the price lower since dedicated battery and charger are not required. And of course if out and about and the batteries are used up you have many more sources of supply than you would using a dedicated battery. That said a few duty cycles will see the spend on batteries make up the difference in price.

Either way budget for a largish memory card - 2Gb plus - makes sense these days to go with the camera. SD cards are quite cheap at that end of the size range, thogh perhaps not so cheap in a high street store.

You could also check out the Canon Outlet on eBay where you just might get slightly more for the money buying a 'refrub' although given a relatively low price anyway even quite a large percentage difference does not add up to much. Plus as it's a gift a refurb, even if refurb just means the box is slightly battered, may not seem to be worth the small saving.

That adi some of the phones out there can take rather good photos that the lower and cameras don't better by much, if at all. They also have the benefit of being something that has a number of purposes that justify having it around at all times. Dedicated cameras, on the other hand, just take up pocket or handbag space most of the time.

TO get a feel for how the sorts of cameras in this area of the market compare it might be worth reading some reviews - if nothing else they provide a lost of things to consider in temrs of what she wants.

This is 2 years old but the chances are comments or more recent reviews, if you find them, will be quite similar.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q408budgetgroup/pa...

The other place I look from time to time is here

http://www.steves-digicams.com/camera-reviews/

Steve's Digicams is a US site so some of the model numbers it reports are different (for the same product) to those used in the UK. They usually manage to advise where that is the case. If not check the dpreview site for the information as they are UK based with a strong awareness of the US market and so tend to be sure to make clear identification of the camera in all.

Bear in mind that all review conclusions are usually relative to what was in the market at around the time of the review.

If you don't have the time or inclination to check the sites then Canon should be a fairly safe bet.

HTH

[anonymous-user]

I'm am no expert or even a good amateur but any non-DSLR is just delaying the inevitable and actually just slowing you down getting a DSLR.

Honestly I'd save your £100 or get £100 worth of jessops vouchers or something to put towards a DSLR. If you or your other half wants to do any type of low light (in doors without a good light setup) or action shots (underwear included or not) then current digital non-DSLR's are not good enough to get the quality or have the flexibility you need.

The scepticism at the beginning of the thread was well founded. I can't justify the cost of a DSLR at the moment and am currently reverting to using my film SLR because I am so frustrated by the poor performance of some quite high end digital non-DSLR cameras certainly more than £100 worth.

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 11th November 16:23

[AndyT77]

Thanks LongQ that last post was very useful.