I'm thinking of getting a digital camera but I'm not sure which manufacturer I should go for. I'm tempted to get Sony but I don't how good they are at making cameras. I'm also considering Nikon, Cannon and Olympus.

My budget is £150 - £300, reliability and the ability to record audio mpeg's is important too.

Which camera do you have, what are the good and bad points about it?

Your feedback would muchly be appreciated!

Sony digital cameras are generally very good. The recent ones have Carl Zeiss lenses which are very good.

I have found Canon cameras to be very well made and reliable, both film and digital. My other half has an Ixus 430 which takes very good pics and is around £250 online. It has the added bonus of being very compact.

Depending on whether you are after something like that i.e. compact point and shoot, you might also want to consider something like the Canon Powershot A80 (or A75). The A80 is soon to be discontinued and is a bargin at around £200 as it has manual features where you can control the aperture, exposure etc if you want to be a bit more creative. You can also get lenses to fix onto it to expand it even further. The down side, is that it's slightly bigger than say an Ixus.

I beleive they both record video with sound... the Ixus 500 which is down to around £280 has better quality video too.

There's plenty of sites with in-depth reviews of cameras though, that can help you decide...

DC resource and
DP review

are just a couple of the more popular ones.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for that, that's been very helpful!

I've narrowed my search down to the: Sony DSCP 10, DSCP93 and the one's you've mentioned: Canon Ixus 430 and 500.

One more question though, do you know any reputable sites where I can get it from, the only one I know is Unbeatable.co.uk?

Cheers.

Everybody has their favourite when it comes to shops.

I buy alot of camera stuff from 7dayshop.com, though I don't think I'd recommend them for cameras.

When we bought the Ixus, we searched through the various shops using shopgenie.co.uk to get the cheapest ones. We then went through them to see which was the best deal.

In the end we bought it from bestcameras as they wre about £4-5 more than the cheapest, but give a free 2 year guarantee on all cameras. I would recommend them also as they seem to be on the ball and deliver next day free of charge.

The only place I would warn you against though, esp. if you are thinking of an Ixus, is Pixmania. They are cheap, but don't go there unless you are good at French or German - as that is what the manuals come in (its mentioned in the small print)