At that price point I would be thinking hard about an e410 personally. I appreciate that you might well not want a full dSLR though.
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SLRs are a bit too bulky for me.
I'm currently playing with a friend's Olympus SP-550 (predecessor to 570, 18x zoom) so that's a start.
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Fuji for my money, I have an excellent S700 series, good camera. Fuji have a clearance area on their website of "refurbished" cameras - in reality these are unsold cameras from Argos and the such like. I use a Fuji in work as well - very reliable and user friendly, getting cracking results even though its over six years old.
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I'll go with PU. After 20 (or was it 30) years with a Pentax ME Super and an MX with assorted lenses I spent £119 on a Fuji S5700 (I see they are now £99 at various well known outlets) and I can't fault it. The 10x zoom is more than enough (maybe I'm getting a bit shaky in old age!!) and the resolution is fantastic - up to A4 prints easily. Loads of different program modes but most of the time I stick it on auto and snap away. I quite like the AA batteries - have a couple of sets of rechargables and each seems to last for about 400 photos and if you run out of charge you can always nip to nearest shop and get the ordinary ones.
I lust after a DSLR by Nikon, Pentax or Canon at 4 or 5 times the price(because they are lovely machines) but I can't justify it in terms of the photos I take - holiday snaps, portraits of family, foxes and birds in back garden, flowers in macro mode etc.
Pretty compact and light as well - no probem to carry round wherever you go, and seems pretty robust also.
Pros or really serious photographers will argue - but for 99% of photos I want to take, it's ideal (and cheap - my Pentaxes cost more in 1980 !)
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I still have my MESuper. It was considered a Cortina camera in its day - still works may dig it out for my America trip....
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I will second the advice given by others, with a Fuji S5600 sitting on the desk here in front of me. The thing to remember is that 10 MPixels is no better than 5Mpixels if you have better optical zoom (and use it!).
Interestingly, like PU, I had a Pentax ME super, and daughter still uses one. They still make cracking value when bought on the second hand market. I would have thought thay were more upmarket than a Cortina? When I had one stolen about 15 years ago the insurance company willingly paid out about 2 times the original 1983 purchase price, based on the 2nd hand value.
I also have a collection of original Olympus Trips that reside in glove boxes of the cars with hispeed films. I really must replace them, although when bought at about 3£ each it was cheaper than disposable cameras. Robust, brilliant optics and really nice 'feel'.
pmh
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>Pros or really serious photographers will argue - but for 99% of photos I want to take, it's ideal
I don't think a Pro would argue with that at all.
I was a semi-serious amateur at one stage with both 35mm and medium format gear. I've since added digital SLR to my collection but at least 80% of our photos (and definitely the most memorable ones) are taken with my wife's little compact. You can't grab that special moment if you've left the SLR at home because it's too bulky.
Kevin...
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>>You can't grab that special moment if you've left the SLR at home because it's too bulky.>>
Modern digital cameras bulky, including SLRs?
If anything they are almost too small to be of real interest, in contrast to my final generation Nikon F401 body and 28mm to 200mm Tamron zoom, or even my Ashai Spotmatic 1.8 Super Takumar...:-)
But the modern digital cameras are, to be frank, quite superb and the results are pretty well on a par with 35mm equivalents - even so I can still tell the difference between a 35mm camera photographic print and that from a digital camera, whatever the latter's MP count.
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Well well Its te old ME super club. I have mine (black body) still in its bag in the loft. Cracking camera.
I just bought (three weeks back) the Fuji S5 800 from argos £99
Astonishing value for money
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Interesting how so many of us have the same 'engineering' values when it comes to product choice.
pmh
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LOL...same here, I still sometimes use my Pentax ME-F ( ME Super with focus confirmation added) and I've got two Olympus Trip 35s at home, last one cost me a whole fiver a while back, but that did include a film ;-). very nice optics. I've gone down the 'bridge camera' route rather than a DSLR, mainly using a Panasonic FZ-20.
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Take a look at the Olympus mju SW range.
The 1030SW is waterproof to 10m, shockproof up to 2m and crushproof to 100kg. Optical zoom is a bit limited though at 28 to 102mm. If you really can't get closer, the image quality is plenty good enough to Photoshop afterwards.
I bought one for the wife to use when snorkelling and it's been excellent.
Kevin...
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Digital compact cameras are all very well, but camera shake... you (I) cannot hold a camera at arm's length and take a steady photograph. Unlike with my trusty Minolta SLR c1970 (which the burglars spurned when they broke in). Inhale, hold breath, squeeze trigger - rock solid platform. If you hold them up to your nose the viewfinder never corresponds to the real photograph.
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"you (I) cannot hold a camera at arm's length"
Exactly, which is why I would never consider a camera without a viewfinder. Screen is good for a quick check on result but (I find) useless for framing a piccy especially in bright sunlight.
I too think the ME super was more than "Cortina class". Compact, reliable, great lens and a good price. I also like the old MX - manual, simple, robust, batteries last forever, loads of lenses available. But then I've never had a top of the range Nikon or Canon.
"Interesting how so many of us have the same 'engineering' values when it comes to product choice."
Wonder how many of you also have a Canon Ixus - I have an "old" V3 - solid as a rock, only 3.2mp but only size of a fag packet, metal body, good lens, and the sort of camera you can stick in pocket and not even notice - but it's there when you need it.
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Phil W wrote: 'Screen is good for a quick check on result but (I find) useless for framing a piccy especially in bright sunlight.'
I bought a Nikon Coolpix S210 last Saturday - super slim/compact digital.
I'm new to digi-snapping, but early impressions are what a tremendous device it is, except...
Tried my first landscape in bright sunlight today, and as Phil W says above, framing with the screen is nearly impossible.
I remember my mum's Kodak Instamatic which would only take pics in good/bright light.
Fast forward nearly 40 years and I have a camera which will pick out the petals on a daisy at midnight.
But show it a sunny day and I end up with a picture of my shoes.
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Cortina class was a description that appeared in a photography magazine of the time -maybe I was being disingenuous ;-0
I also have a Moskvich class in the shape of an original Soviet made Lomo 35mm Camera which was a pure impulse buy in the 80s. I recently found out that this is a desirable bit of kit - going for silly money.
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Several friends in the 70s had a Zenit (?), it was Russian and the cheapest full-feature SLR around by a long way.
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"Several friends in the 70s had a Zenit (?), it was Russian and the cheapest full-feature SLR around by a long way."
I remember it well - think it cost about £30? The Rolls-Royce(!) was the Zenit E which had a built in light meter situated just above the lens and from which you then set aperture/shutter speed manually and which meant if you pointed directly at the subject you got perfect sky and clouds exposure and rather underexposed portrait/landscape!. Trick was to aim meter at ground and set exposure from that! Zenit B (Cortina!!) had no meter.
Think there might be a Zenit (and a Weston exposure meter which cost far more than camera!) somewhere in the loft! Along with a Baldinette (complete with bellows and Scheider- Kreutznach lens?)!
By the way, £30 in the '70s is probably the equivalent of a rather nice Nikon/Canon/Pentax DSLR these days!
But, I have some great photos taken with the Zenit - seem to think it had quite a good lens???
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All the ones I'm looking at have electronic viewfinders. Camera shake wasn't an issue on the Olympus I played with yesterday.
18x zoom combined with 8.5 digital zoom allowed me to take a photo of an aircraft passing overhead at 25,000ft+ camera in hand and after doing so I could make out the aircraft type. Even at 15fps and panning none of the shots were blurred - this did impress me.
The Panasonic fz18 seems to get the best reviews. The Fuji seems to be less favoured.
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"The Panasonic fz18 seems to get the best reviews. The Fuji seems to be less favoured."
Difference in price though?
Liked the look of the Panasonics but wondered if, for me, the advantages were worth the price difference? And, to be quite honest, I couldn't possibly hold a camera steady enough to justify an 18x zoom! Nice bit of kit though.
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"Difference in price though?"
Fuji S8100 and FZ18 are both about £200.
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many of the point and shoot cameras have 'Image Stabilisation' built in. Different systems available with differing capabilities, but all help mitigate against camera shake.
I dont know how good this is www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/cat9.html for compacts, but it is quite a hand site when shopping for dslrs
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Wonder how many of you also have a Canon Ixus - I have an "old" V3 - solid as a rock only 3.2mp but only size of a fag packet metal body good lens and the sort of camera you can stick in pocket and not even notice - but it's there when you need it.
Well I bought a second hand Pentax Optio S for 20 quid the other week, very much the Pentax equivalent on the Ixus, bit of a bargain, seems people don't want cameras that are 'only' 3 megapixels these days :-/
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