Digital Cameras

I am not too fussy about the quality of my pictures however the pictures taken from my Fujifilm Finepix 1300 can be a little grainy and while this is not noticable on screen when I print them out it is. I have a £130 photoprinter so I know its not the printers fault, when I can images in from my dads expensive 1970's camera they pictures look better.

I am thinking of upgrading for christmas, I think if I can get refurbished one from Morgan I will be able to get a 2 megapixel one with proper lens for around £100. Mine has small lens and is 1.3 megapixel.

Here is the question I have seen a lot of cheap £50 3 megapixel camera's from unkown brands from computer shops, are these crap or ok?

I was always under the impression that camera's are like HIFI its not the spec you pay for its the quality. At least I know my camera has Fujinon lens from one of the major players, in fact my camera is actually made in Japan.

 

i reckon its probably your printer
130 quid photo printer is cheap, your looking at least 3-400 quid for a decent quality photo printer

and a scanned image from a decent SLR will nearly always look better that a digi picture

 

Frankly it's probably both units.

If you're going digital an expect decent images, I'd consider the following:
- Buy it from a group that have been making cameras for years, and know what they're talking about. It's all well and good stuffing an off the shelf LCD receptor in a camera, but if the optics, control software are rubbish, it's a waste of time. For a good camera, I'd limit my options to Canon or Nikon
- I remember Nikon stating that to achieve the same level of quality as an SLR, that you'd be looking at a digital requiring 13mega pixels. So we're not quite there, even if you do pick a decent camera.

 

need some advice i dont know anything about digi cams. aint got much money and could do with a cam. which of these would be best? and yes i know they are sucky ass makes!

Yakumo Mega-Image IV

http://www.yakumo.de/produkte/index.php?pid=1&ag=Digitalkamera#Yakumo Mega-Image IV

or

http://www.aiptek.com.tw/english/product/dv/dv3300.htm

or

http://www.aiptek.com.tw/english/product/dv/dv3100.htm

all in put much appreciated

 

at that level, it probably wont make to much difference

more Mpixels will be better

try to get optical zoom and not digital

 

whats interpolated to increase mpixels from 2.0 to 4.0 which the yakumo does?

 

it means that its not a true 4Mpixel cam

the cam will be 2 Mpixel with software that works on it to produce more Mpixel
sometimes it will produce pics that are fuzzy or blurred and not as good as a true 4Mpixel

 

so which would you say was best in your opinion? i know they arent great but i dont need super pics

 

not sure really, the first url is in german

out of the other 2 i guess the first url looks best, but the description are a tad confusing

have you tried looking for reviews?
im no expert

 

the first one does seem best

 

For around £100, your best bet is a second hand digital camera, from well known CAMERA manufacturers. Eg, Canon, Nikon, Olympus. HP, Kodak, Epson, etc do not normally make cameras, and end up with models that aren't as good as those from experienced camera manufacturers. Since the vast majority of digital imaging devices are bought in (eg nikon use sony CCDs), the camera part is the important one.

My first digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 700, which for a point&shoot gave pretty good images with lowish noise. Eventually the lack of control (compared to my Canon EOS SLR gear) annoyed me, and I replaced it with a Canon EOS D30 DSLR.

If it were my £100, I'd go for a second-hand CP700 or 950 if you can find. Otherwise, save a bit more for a Canon A200.

 

thanks isaac. what about a canon powershot a40/a60 if i push the budget

 

They are good choices too, offering optical zoom (digital zoom is worthless, as penance hinted at).

Don't ignore the used market. There are some great deals to be had, and I have bought both of my digital cameras second hand (the CP700 was £500 new (when digicams were serious money), bought for £160, the D30 was £2700 new, bought for £550 with 9 month warranty). With few moving parts, digital cameras are essentially fairly reliable, although the sensors can age. Also, in favour of buying used is that new digital camera models tend not only to be better than predecessors, but cheaper also (the D30 was so cheap relative to new price because the D60 that replaced it came in at £1800, and the 10D that replaced that sells for £1300), so used values are pretty weak compared to what something cost only a year or two ago.

 

Thanks, it will be essentialy a point and shoot device I am after as I need to take my pictures quickly as they are mainly holiday snaps. My Fuji was perfect for this but you can tell just by looking at the lens its not a serious camera. My fuji does allow manual control as well but I am never used this as I am never shure when I am supposed to use which settings. I guess I just need somthing with better lens and higher megapixels. An SLR would be to expensive and to complicated for me.

 

i ordered a Canon A300. will let you all know what its like

 

I was going to add, but again a bit slow, not to bother with the printer, spend the money on a 3 m/pixel camera (not a kodak coz they're sh1t, I know from personal experience) then when your done taken phptos take the thing to boots and get them to process it, it works out quite cheap and better than any "photo" printer that I've seen yet.

 

there's a link to an offer jessops are doing over in the "hot deals" section. Register with them and they'll do 10 prints from digital images for you for free! Bargain!!!