Digital Camera buying advice

[Meowster]

Hello again my useful AGSers

I'm buying a digital camera for somebody's birthday. He uses it to take a lot of closeups of things to use in photoshop, plus at parties and of course ordinary picture taking, It needs to be small, preferably small enough that he can carry it around in his pocket, but not one of these ridiculously micro sized ones that seem to be floating about....

So, really it needs to be relatively small and excellent quality, with a good optical zoom. I'd rather it be in the e200 - e400 price range.... hey, if it's less than that, all the better! Also, a good brand name would be nice

Any recommendations?


It would be neat if you could get it in red, too

[Andail]

In that price range you can get very good digital cameras. It's hard to give advice since there's so many brands on the market, and few of them are really bad, imo.

Here's one I found at  :
technikdirekt.de

And one cheaper

[LGM]

Well.. If he's doing closeups.. He'll need AT LEAST 4MP. And yes, opitcal zoom is a plus. 3x to 4x is usually enough for most work, unless he wants to go macro... Then he'll need whole new lenses.

Some good brands would be Nikon, Canon or Konika. Stay away from Kodak as most are designed for dead-head consumers who just want to take candid pictures of their little kids. But I don't think Nikons come in very compact models, I could be wrong.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16830120160 This may be something you're looking for. (Yes, I'm aware it's a US site and you live in the UK.)

Check to see if the camera has manual functions. If everything's automatic, and he's at least an amateur photographer, he'll want more control than what most fully-automatics offer.

[Saren]

Well.. If he's doing closeups.. He'll need AT LEAST 4MP. And yes, opitcal zoom is a plus. 3x to 4x is usually enough for most work, unless he wants to go macro... Then he'll need whole new lenses.

Some good brands would be Nikon, Canon or Konika. Stay away from Kodak as most are designed for dead-head consumers who just want to take candid pictures of their little kids. But I don't think Nikons come in very compact models, I could be wrong.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16830120160 This may be something you're looking for. (Yes, I'm aware it's a US site and you live in the UK.)

Check to see if the camera has manual functions. If everything's automatic, and he's at least an amateur photographer, he'll want more control than what most fully-automatics offer.

Aw, I have a Kodak and it works pretty well.

[Anian]

Yeah Canon and Nikon have a wide range of models and prices. You might even consider buying an older model (as in before the current one, not used) cause the prices go down and usually the difference is not that big between editions. Olympus also has some cheaper models.
...cool models of Canon (that are not just point an click) start about 400 euros, but as I said you might find it cheaper to buy non current models.

I think you should worry about 4Mp since even mobile phones now have that, usual cameras have 8+. Definetly with optical zoom

[Babar]

Errr....even though this topic is 5 years old, it reminded me that I have the same question.

I want to buy a camera for myself, and while I have neither the funds (nor probably the total know-how) to get a DSLR, I wanted something a little more variable than a simple point & shoot. Specifically, I want something where I can control shutter speed, exposure and such. I don't need weird fancy shmancy effects like FACIAL RECOGNITION!!11! though, and a reasonable MP count would be acceptable, I don't need it too high (although I'd still like a nice...what's the term for it...DPI?).

Someone suggested the G11 (or the Powershot G series of Canon in general) as well as the Powershot S90/95. Anyone have experiences with these (or have suggestions otherwise)? Being the cheapskate that I am, I didn't want something that came out just yesterday either, so a bit of age doesn't scare me.