Digital camera replacement suggestions please

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My Canon A75 (3.2mp) - trusty companion on many a trip out, and taker of over 4500 pics - finally bought the dust yesterday so I'm looking for a replacement, something -

similarly portable (so not DSLR or 'bridge')
sub-£100 (really)
taking AA batteries
good photo quality indoors and out

Any suggestions, guys?
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I bought a Fujifilm Finepix f50fd at the beginning of the year.

Portability-wise it is great - it is about the same size as a pack of playing cards.

It is 12 Mpixels which I thought was overkill when I first got the camera but I've grown to like that because it lets me digitally zoom into the pictures without them looking pixellated (the images are 3 times the number of pixels of my monitor, so even with 3 times digital zoom, I can still get a full-screen image where I screen pixel = 1 photo pixel).

Battery life is pretty good but it uses a Li-ion battery rather than the AAs you specified. You could always carry a second pack. I reckon I could take at least 100 pictures on one charge, perhaps 200 (I've never counted). I tend to take about 30 pictures per outing and only charge the battery about once a week. Only had it die on me once, and that was after I forgot to charge it for a couple of weeks.

Picture quality can be very good indeed, but I've found the auto-setting doesn't always get the exposure right. There is a semi-auto setting which I've started using and that let's me adjust the exposure. That's an improvement.

I bought the camera refurbished from Fujifilm UK. It was going for just under £100 but I found an electronic 'coupon' online which gave me a discount so I got a 2GB card as well and it still came in at under £100.

finepix_f50fd.jpg
 

peanut

Guest
you have just got to buy the Fujifilm finepix J120 at Comet. for just £89.00 its fantastic.

Its metal cased 10MP compact with 5x optical zoom and 3x digital and exactly credit card sized. The picture quality ,particularly video is simply breathtaking and the 3" screen on the back is the biggest I've seen.
Its worth it just for the screen ;)

You can view all your previous inmages on a single screen which makes editing and search simple.

I can't wait to video my local hilly ride tomorrow . The SD card takes approx 19 mins per Gb at 640x480 or 35 mins at 320x240
or 200 images per 1xGb at 10MP (1680 on a 8Gb card)
I just bought a 4Gb SD card off Amazon for £6.00.

You need to buy the camera online for pickup at a local Comet store of your choice. make sure you take the order number to the store
http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/category/615/Digital-Cameras?cm_re=Nav-_-PortTech-_-DigitalCameras

just seen Colins recommendation looks like an excellent choice
 

col

Legendary Member
Iv had my coolpix 3200 for a few years now, it goes everywhere with me, very easy to use and reliable too, if i was after a compact again id definitely look at the coolpix range.
 
OP
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beanzontoast
Thanks for the responses. ;)

Speaking of Fuji, this is the beasite I'm currently looking at - gets good reviews. Though it doesn't use the CF cards my A75 did (and Sony a100 does), it still comes in under the £100.
 
You could get sand in one of these. Doesn't fit the £100 budget though (160 ish).
 

peanut

Guest
The screens on the back of Fujis aren't good.

Get a Panasonic Lumix. Great, metal build quality, Leica lens, good screen. I've got an FS3, which were aroudn for £80 a couple of weeks ago.
the screeen on the back of the Finepix J120 is excellent nothing wrong with a 3" screen .
The J120 has 10Mp with a 5x optical zoom lense as apposed to 8Mp and 3x zoom of the Panasonic. It is also metal cased and has a much better spec than the panasonic including a single multi image gallery screen for search and editing etc
 

swee'pea99

Squire
It's not the screen size, it's the resolution. Line them up alongside each other and the difference is amazing.

Mp don't matter once you get over 5. It's the lens quality. And the Leica is streets ahead.

That's what I found anyway when I had a load of different models an the counter in Jessops.
There is much in what you say, Grasshopper. The only thing I'd add is that it's not just the lens quality. Most cameras will make a pretty decent job of an outdoor scene at 2pm on a nice day. It's twilight/evenings/overcasts that sort out the men from the boys.....and that's about electronics and software too. Oh, and some are just tougher than others - build quality varies.

But yeah, the whole Mp-race is a bit of a nonsense.
 
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beanzontoast
[quote name='swee'pea99']There is much in what you say, Grasshopper. The only thing I'd add is that it's not just the lens quality. Most cameras will make a pretty decent job of an outdoor scene at 2pm on a nice day. It's twilight/evenings/overcasts that sort out the men from the boys.....and that's about electronics and software too. Oh, and some are just tougher than others - build quality varies.

But yeah, the whole Mp-race is a bit of a nonsense.[/quote]

Agree about the megapixel thing - unless you're going to be printing on very large paper or cropping an area of detail from a shot and enlarging it, it isn't as important as some make out. Also agree with the 'see the actual camera' approach - Jessops and Jacobs score for me here over Amazon etc. True there are sites like trustedreviews where you can see sample images taken with a range of cameras, but it's important to me to be able to hold the camera and see how it feels to use. Except that I picked up a very nice Canon to try in Jacobs yesterday - and it's £50 outside my price bracket!
 

peanut

Guest
you say its not about MP but that was only a small part of the advantages I mentioned of the J120 over the Panasonic.

I guess you would suggest that professional photographers would be just as well off using a 5Mp camera as apposed to the 20Mp cameras they use right :smile:
 
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beanzontoast
OK - it's going to be the Canon. Means waiting a week for the extra funds to accrue, but having seen it again 'in the flesh' today in Jesspos and having looked at a bunch of reviews and You Tube demos of its video capability (which I wasn't really factoring in initially), I'm sold. Thanks for the advice chaps! ;)
 

peanut

Guest
beanzontoast said:
OK - it's going to be the Canon. Means waiting a week for the extra funds to accrue, but having seen it again 'in the flesh' today in Jesspos and having looked at a bunch of reviews and You Tube demos of its video capability (which I wasn't really factoring in initially), I'm sold. Thanks for the advice chaps! :cheers:

well lets at least have the model or a linky !;)
 
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