Simple AA powered digital camera?

[Speicher]

Thank you Norm. I will compare the prices at Amazon (now that I know what I am looking for) with those at the PC shop. If there is not much difference in price, I prefer to shop locally. They are very helpful, very friendly and very knowledgeable.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

Not "compact", but the Fuji S series combines the abilities of larger lenses at a good price

got a s6500fd, brilliant camers and totally general purpose, almost the picture quality of my wifes pro canon kit without the need to carry round a bagful of lenses. These half way SLR's lose out in the processing power, some of the 'toys' & usually and the speed of writing to cards etc vs full SLR kit but are more than enough for me as an ex photographer and still keen to take a decent picture. even with it being a good all in 1 compromise from good photos, its still quite a bulk to regularly lug round on a bike compared to a compact.

As for compacts, consider Casio, not as well known a camera brand but my last Exilim was 2 x aa & lasted forever on 'em was very lightweight, had an accurate screen on the back for colour and density fiddling, superb picture quality, more than enough settings for speed and light and it routinely gave far better pics than My wifes Canon IXUS, the pentax optio that it replaced or the Olympus mju digital I borrowed when my daughter dropped it and bent the lens barrel.

I also like the look of the Panasonic Lumix range, very good lens which should be a major consideration on compacts.

 

[Norm]

If there is not much difference in price, I prefer to shop locally.

+1 to that! The camera I'm looking at is around £200, my LCS is about a tenner more expensive than Amazon and I'll be using them once the expenditure has been approved.

Same with LBS (the only things I've bought online weren't stocked at my LBS) and even using a milkman rather than my local superstore.

 

[Speicher]

Unfortunately I am rarely able to use my lbs. The cheapest bike they sell, is about £2k. But they are very friendly!

I still have a milkman who visits me three times a week. I also procure vital comestibles from the butcher and the baker, but not the candlestick maker.

There are two bookshops here. An excellent new one, for new books, and an excellent new second-hand bookshop. Although the latter have not got much stock, only about twenty thousand books.

 

[rh100]

rh100 - I have looked on the Amazon site for a larger memory card than the one the camera came with, but I am confused. Unlike batteries, it does not give a identifying size etc to the cards.

How do I know which one will fit this camera? The last time I needed to buy a memory card, the local (independant, family owned) Computer shop helped me find the right one. It looks like their prices were very competitive, but they understandably carry a small stock.

What Norm says, (he's a font of information that Norm )

However, looking at the spec for the camera, it only shows cards upto 512MB, I'm not sure if that's because thats all that was available when the camera came out, or if it is a limitation of the camera. I think in this case I would try the local shop so they can try it first before you buy it, or even better get to a Jessops (are they still around?)

Spec is here http://www.cameras.co.uk/specs/olympus-c-310.cfm

edit: even if 512 is the maximum, it should be enough to get loads of pics on there at 3 megapixels, I still use a 512 card in my 6 meg SLR.

 

[rh100]

got a s6500fd, brilliant camers and totally general purpose, almost the picture quality of my wifes pro canon kit without the need to carry round a bagful of lenses. These half way SLR's lose out in the processing power, some of the 'toys' & usually and the speed of writing to cards etc vs full SLR kit but are more than enough for me as an ex photographer and still keen to take a decent picture. even with it being a good all in 1 compromise from good photos, its still quite a bulk to regularly lug round on a bike compared to a compact.

As for compacts, consider Casio, not as well known a camera brand but my last Exilim was 2 x aa & lasted forever on 'em was very lightweight, had an accurate screen on the back for colour and density fiddling, superb picture quality, more than enough settings for speed and light and it routinely gave far better pics than My wifes Canon IXUS, the pentax optio that it replaced or the Olympus mju digital I borrowed when my daughter dropped it and bent the lens barrel.

I also like the look of the Panasonic Lumix range, very good lens which should be a major consideration on compacts.

I saw some Casio's at the Photography show at the NEC a few years back, was really impressed. (I'm no expert mind, but I recognize a good gadget when I see one ).

My Dad has one of the earlier top end Fuji's, he loves it. I had one of the lower end one's which produced good pics, but had quite bad shutter lag. i guess that's a thing of the past now though.

 

[Speicher]

I agree rh100, Norm has an enormous amount of knowledge about Things.

When I saw the camera on Oxfam on-line, I looked at Photoblog dot com, to see what was said about it on there. It was described as simple and easy to use. It will be a "spare" non-expensive camera to carry everywhere. There were no instructions with it. I will see how my camera skills are when I try and use it without instructions. But as it will be a quick pointy shooty one, I do not think I need to worry too much initially about all the menus. I think somewhere on-line manuals are available, but the price varies enormously.

 

[rh100]

be carefull of online manual sites, my understanding is that they can be used to spread virus's (not overly sure about this but i'm really wary of them after hearing something about it).

Actually, even better, get it straight from olympus for free! Just get someone to print it out on a laser printer for you
http://www.olympus.co.uk/consumer/208_manuals.cfm?prodID=P_N1700292

It sounds like it's ideal for point and shoot, 3 meg and 3x zoom served us well on our old Canon for a casual camera, I think it's an ideal spec for normal shots and morethan enough to get decent prints out of.

My replacememnt samsung has just turned up in the post, it has 10 megapixels, and the on screen selection actually says that 10 meg is for A2 !! It suggests 3 meg for A5, and I rarely print above normal 6x4 inch prints. So I turned it down to 3 meg, and it now estimates that the card will hold 1950 shots!

edit: the home page for your olympus http://www.olympus.co.uk/consumer/29_c-310_zoom.htm

 

[Norm]

I agree rh100, Norm has an enormous amount of knowledge about Things.

If that is true, it's only because I is ancient. Cameras and bikes, two of my fave things in the history of forever. Others include archery, sailing, 4x4 and motorsport, although those threads never seem to get much traction on CC.

I was about to point to the pages on the Olympus site, but I see that rh100 has beaten me to it. I think that he is right about the 512MB being listed as the largest because that's about all that was available at the time, but that doubt is why I mentioned the Distance Selling Regs. Using the LCS would remove that requirement, though.

And yes, Jessops are still around and still rather good, compared to national multiples in other retail sectors - mentioning no *cough*Halfords*cough* names.

 

[rh100]

If that is true, it's only because I is ancient. Cameras and bikes, two of my fave things in the history of forever. Others include archery, sailing, 4x4 and motorsport, although those threads never seem to get much traction on CC.

I was about to point to the pages on the Olympus site, but I see that rh100 has beaten me to it. I think that he is right about the 512MB being listed as the largest because that's about all that was available at the time, but that doubt is why I mentioned the Distance Selling Regs. Using the LCS would remove that requirement, though.

And yes, Jessops are still around and still rather good, compared to national multiples in other retail sectors - mentioning no *cough*Halfords*cough* names.

Was just thinking about that comparison, with the Halfords thread in cafe, they could probably learn a thing or two.

I haven't used Jessops in a while, but they have always been very helpfull when I have been in the past.

 

[Speicher]

Thank you for the link to the womanual rh100. I was not going to rush into finding a manual until I knew that the camera worked. It was a slight risk buying from Oxfam but in reality, I think people would not give them a camera that did not work. However, a free manual would be excellent.

I can never remember how to approximate mb and gb to number of pages.
The manual says it takes 5600 kb, how many pages is that? I hope I can scroll through the screens and just print the English, rather than the seven other languages listed.

 

[rh100]

Not sure how many pages that would be to be honest, at that size I would guess 'quite a few'

Are you on broadband? shouldn't take too long to download, there is a link for a quick guide for the basics aswell I think.

 

[Norm]

I've got a very slow broadband connection (7.5km from the exchange ) and it's less than 90 seconds to download.

The PDF file is 164 pages, English is on pages 2-41. If you want me to email you the English pages, that's not a problem, PM me an email address.

Unfortunately, the online manual is the pre-flight file which has all the printer's crop marks etc. Not the best looking thing but hey, it's FOC and it's got everything that the printed manual would have, with just a little bit more room around the edges.

 

[Speicher]

That is kind of you to offer. Norm. I should be ok downloading it, after identifying which pages I need.

Perhaps I am still paranoid about how many pages need printing. Many years ago I managed to single-handedly crash the computer system for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries for the south west of the country by incorrectly entering some parameters for a search, and then incorrectly pressing Abort to stop the procedure. It is not something that one easily forgets.

 

[Norm]

You need to download the whole file, but it shouldn't take long. Just set the print range to pages 2-41 and you should be good to go.