I was in Tescos earlier and i live in a city which has one of the really big 24 hour Extra ones. I counted well over 60 cameras on display and i had a little look round and liked quite a few. Some of them were around £200 but i can always price them online and try get them a bit cheaper. The last time i bought a digital camera was around 5/6 years ago and i paid £50+ for it. It was a Vivitar 3mp camera and it did the job, gave me nice quality pictures.

The one problem i didn't enjoy was when i took a picture, you had to wait a second before the flash came and then around 3 seconds later it brought up the picture and then wait another 10 seconds with a blank screen before it reloads and you can take another picture. This annoys me because it is hard to take pictures and explain to people that they they need to keep their pose after the flash goes off so that i can check the image and make sure it turns out ok. Most of the time it doesn't turn out ok. I also go to various sporting shows throughout the year and notice loads of people with their fancy new phones and cameras and because there are so many i end up looking at their LCD screens and their snapping away and taking lots of pics. Are all cameras like that now or is there a certain name for what i described earlier? The cameras i was looking at were 12mp ones so there is a huge increase in quality. Family photos would be great but i would like to go to these shows i go to and get some decent pics. Do you think i should make the upgrade?

http://www.imaging-resource.com/IMCOMP/COMPS01.HTM
http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=sensor+sizes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter
Its not so simple. MP is not a shortcut to quality. The quality of the lens and sensor matters a lot. Whether its sensor size or technology level, it makes the difference of a 12MP sensor delivierng sharp pictures, or 6 megapixels of noise and 6 of picture. Theres plenty of research you can do on this subject, but the sites above are a good start. There are still good reasons why you get what you pay for, digital slrs have huge lenses and sensors, cheapies have tiny ones prone to noise. That being said i'm sure most decent cameras could beat your old camera these days.

The first link has a good photo comparison tool. Its esp telling when you view the higher iso test shots, aka low light performance, the cheap cameras just can't hack it.

Sites like dpreview have reviews/stats on cameras that tell you exactly down to fraction of a second how long each procedure on a camera takes to finish as well.

Camera speed still comes at a cost. Digital slr's are still best for sporting because they can burst fire, incredibly responsive shots are possible, also bracketing where the camera takes multiple exposures at different settings so you can pick the best later.
Cheapies are faster than they used to be, but still, its going to be around a second and perhaps limited number of snaps. You can take as many snaps as you want these days, memory cards are massive, and cheap. Decently recent cams can also record 720p hd video, but that does take some space.

The ones i was looking at were big bulky ones with huge lens on the front. I would have paid the £200 for them but i think i might be able to get them cheaper online. The ones i have had so far are just point and shoot, you just press the button and that is it. These ones with the big lens look a lot more difficult to use but at the end of the day i want good quality and i want a camera that i can just press the button when im ready and know i've got a good picture. I was at a sporting event in April and when i was looking at people using their cameras i noticed on the LCD screen the snapshot came up right away and then went back to video mode so they could keep taking pictures.

I don't suppose there is any way of me trying a camera out before i make my decision? I would love great quality pictures but the way i see it 12mp is a lot better than my 3mp 5 years ago and 5 years ago i was blown away by the quality. Even today i still consider them really decent images. My printer can do pretty good prints but i'd love to be able to go and get them done professionally on professional paper. So i don't know if it can be done, fast response time between taking pics, good quality pictures and whatever else i would want that i don't yet know about. All for under £200. Can it be done?

I tried to look on the Tesco website but i can't see any of the ones they had in store. I'll use this one as an example.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.205-6429.aspx


There must have been at least 20 like that around and above the £200 price range. I don't know the proper name for those types of cameras but I've been told those are among the best ones you can buy due to the lens on them. Basically that is the kind of camera i was looking at buying. i will read up on it more and try and learn more. Unfortunately i don't remember any brand names or model names.

What do you guys think of this one?

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...ext%3EFUJI.htm

I found this review online which has more details of the specifications at the bottom.

http://www.myfinepix.co.uk/blog/283/117332

Do you think that is a good quality camera? Is it really 12mp in quality? I'm impressed by the pictures shown in the second site and certainly if it can zoom like that and give that kind of quality then it does look good to me. Is Fuji a good make or could i spend a similar amount of money elsewhere and get better value? Also another thing i mentioned before was when taking pictures, how long it takes before i take one shot and can take the next. On my 5 year old 3mp camera i'm waiting maybe 3 seconds before the image comes up on the screen to see what i've taken and then maybe 10 seconds before i can take the next picture. When i'm reading reviews, is there a special name for that so that i can find out for myself? Like i said in another post i want to be able to go to sporting events and get good clear pictures and also do family photos.

Another camera i am looking at is the Olympus E450 but i am still reading up on that one.

Its not necessarily any harder to use a camera if its got a bigger lens in front, its got nothing to do with it really, almost all cameras have an automatic mode where it makes all the decisions. Its just that some remove almost all ability to make your own decisions if you choose, they are no easier to use in reality. But if all other factors are equal, bigger higher quality lens means more light and probably better picture quality possible.

As i said, use the comparator site i gave you to evaluate quality. Compare to the ones in the same price bracket you are interested in. Only you can decide. and yes, your 5 year old camera is pretty much junk, so don't use it as a standard because even lousy poor value cameras these days are faster. Unfortunately with the plethora of models and makes and constant camera model update releases, there is no shortcut to research before you buy.

Its not just sensor mp number, which is almost meaningless in itself, its the quality of the sensor, the tech level, the size. The lense also matters, how focused it is at different zoom levels, does it distort, how clear is it across the entire picture, it all varies. and of course the processor speed and quality...

Any decent review site like dpreview will list the time it takes to process shots and the shutter lag down to a fraction of a second.
Example
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canonsd550/page4.asp

Theres no real point in physically trying out cameras, esp when you lack experience to make much of it. You are better off researching online and finding the stats and compare the quality there. Most stores only have a limited selection anyways.

We have several Fuji cameras in the house and really like them. You certainly get a lot of camera for the money and they are very reliable. Highly Recommended.

The one instore is a S1750 but online it only shows a S1730. Not sure if it is a mistake or not. Do you think it is really 12mp in quality? When you take a picture, how long is before you need to wait and take the next one?

Fuji often have cameras with slightly different model numbers, one sold in certain high street stores and one sold everywhere else, but they're pretty much the same camera.

As everyone's been saying 12MP is nothing whatsoever to do with quality, it's just the size of the image.

720p AVCHD video can be huge - 100meg per minute.

I had my first go at taking pictures with the DSLR (10mp, Sony A200) and compact (Panasonic FT1, 12mp, but set to 10mp 3:2).

Despite the Panasonic taking pictures that were 50% larger (6mb vs 4mb), there was absolutely no comparison between the two.

Whilst those taken with the Panasonic were quite good, those taken with the DSLR were just so much better.

Pixel count very definitely has nothing whatsoever to with the picture quality. Its way more complicated than that.

Its actually about 200MB a minute Atleast for my canon 940is. 2GB~10minutes. That being said 8+GB cards are cheap now, and filming over 40 minutes with such a camera is not that likely on most trips. Its enough for the short clips you do use it for. 8GB on sale now is only a few quid, only will get cheaper as time goes on so the space issue is fading fast. But yes, nothing beats the slr large size sensor.

The only rule of thumb on this stuff is no ones ever been fired for buying canon. Stay away from samsung though. They make consumer electronics and have scant experience in camera tech, meaning their cameras tend to look better than they work.

I have just moved over to a digital SLR. Yes it is more difficult than a point and shoot, but now slowly getting used to it, the images are far superior than any I have taken before.

On a second point. The camera in the link. My wife has just bought that one. Uploading the images to the tv (42 inch wide screen) the images are still perfect

It sounds like you are talking about "super-zoom" or "bridge" cameras. A super-zoom is a camera with a lens that zooms from 1x to over 10x. Bridge cameras usually have some SLR features in addition, such as PASM modes or saving in RAW format.

Generally these cameras have much smaller sensors than an SLR so the image quality won't be as good, and are relatively under-powered, so the shot-to-shot times aren't as good as a full SLR either. It's the small sensor size that allows the lens to be small(ish) despite the wide zoom range. I say "ish" because these tend to be bigger than a traditional compact, and often aren't pocket-sized.

Whether the image quality is good enough depends on what you want to do with them. The pictures generally look good on a web page or on a computer screen or a TV screen. Full HD TV is only about 2 megapixels, so a 12 megapixel camera has plenty to spare. Taking a 100% crop, or printing at bigger than A4 sizes, is where the image quality matters.

In addition to full SLRs with optical viewfinders, you can now get so-called mirrorless SLRs, which are smaller and lighter while still having large sensors and other SLR features (often including interchangeable lenses). They tend to cost more than £200, though.

It's worth considering second hand as a route to get quality relatively cheaply. The whole area can be a bottomless pit that consumes a lot of time and money.

Which is true,a nd also not quite. While the camera sensor is 12mp, as i showed before, its a bayer sensor, meaning each sensor pixel only really captures one color, the result is cludged together. So when you zoom you will notice a lack of real pixel detail esp on cheaper cameras. Which is why slrs with much higher mp are necessary. Even on a computer screen the difference between a professional slr or quality cameras image and a point and shoot is readily apparent when done right. It's not just sharpness, but dynamic range, there is more life to the picture.

Canon PowerShot SX200 IS

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-PowerS...1231401&sr=1-1