I know this its not really PC stuff but is PC in a way. Is there any good site that reviews Digital Camaras. I got given a site months ago but have forgoten the name of the site.
http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/615_320153.html
thats the camara I just got to replace my Vivitar 3mp camara that I may give to my sister.

Darren

Novel name - It Works !!!! Makes you wonder.

Anyway, there are thousands of forums and review sites for digital cameras, I would suggest you try one of them. Try http://www.dpreview.com initially.

yep, dpreview is one of the best around.

I hope you are not a victim of the megapixels marketing. The cameras you have chosen are quite cheap not made by known brands, this is of course fine, as long as you realise that going from 3megapixels to 6megapixels may increase the resolution but probably won't give you better pictures, other things like the image processor and the lens start to matter.

Perhaps a similarly priced camera from a better make with fewer megapixels is in order?

To illustrate my point a Nikon D50 is 6MP while a Canon EOS 350D is 8MP but picture quality overall is not particularly different at all.

Indeed with the camera you have chosen you may indeed get much noisier pictures in low light since each pixel will have a lower surfae area without compensation in terms of optics, the sensor or image processing.

Last year I was able to get a 4MP Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS1 for £70, (its not a very good camera but is reasonable for the price point). If you are serious about your happy snaps, something like a Canon Ixus 50 would stand you in greater stead.

My 3mp camara that im replacing was a Vivitar and had a 4x digital zoom. My IT Works 6mp camara has a 4x digital zoom and a 3x optical zoom. Is it true what I have heard that an optical zoom is better than a digital zoom.

Darren

Personally I'd forget about digital zoom. This is like having a picture on your PC and zooming in. You are essentially enlarging the pixels and it will get to a point where is will look blocky, whereas Optical zoom is done through the camera lens but takes the pic at the same resolution.

My new camara gose to digital zoom then changes to optical zoom the more you move in. Im almost starting to get the hang of using it as my Vivitar that I may give my sister was almost a basic 3mp camara.

Darren

Hi Ney,

I have just bought a Canon 750 camera, absolutely fantastic, and you can now buy this camera for around £193, 6 months ago the same camera here in Spain was selling for 499 euros.

I recommended this one to my father in law, he bought one 4 weeks ago, it's the best camera around.

Just plug in the 1mb card and away you go.

Have fun.

John.

Yes
I don't even consider digital zoom as a factor when looking at digital cameras.
I'd only really be concerned with the optical zoom.
Found this article which talks about the difference for you

http://www.photoxels.com/article-opt...ital-zoom.html

And this has some nice pics illustrating the difference further in terms of results.

http://cameras.about.com/od/camerati...icaldigitl.htm

It will be the opposite way around.
You should find that it uses optical zoom (then stops) and if you press on zoom again it will start using digital zoom.

I think they always say there is no substitute for physically getting closer to your subject rather than zooming at all.

A tip though !!.....it may be safer to use optical zoom rather than climbing into that lions cage to get that shot!!!

[quote=TheBigM]
Indeed with the camera you have chosen you may indeed get much noisier pictures in low light since each pixel will have a lower surfae area without compensation in terms of optics, the sensor or image processing. [quote]

I'd like to echo this sentiment. I sell digital cameras for a living and this particular camera is extremely bad in low light levels, it shows distinct sensor "noise" in the form os red and green blotching in areas of black in low-light conditions.

I've learnt there is not much point in going much higher than 5mp in a "compact" camera, simply due to the physical size of the sensor (we're talking like the physical size of the "negative" here, not megapixels), it creates this noise simply because the pixels are packed closer together, indeed your Vivitar 3 meg is a pretty good beast considering the name, but then they're all made by Premier Imaging in Taiwan!

If you want higher quality, look at the Fuji or Panasonic "bridge" camera, so called as they "bridge" the gap between compacts and SLRs. Bridge cameras have physically larger sensors reducing the crosstalk that is sensor noise. These are good up to 6mp and have the added advantage of being up to 10x optical zoom.

Jessops have the Nikon D50 for less than £400 now too, this has a larger sensor again. But I am aware you are on a budget so take a look at this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/112118

It's Vivitar again I know, but it originates from Premiere Imaging and all though it goes against my 5mp limit, it is pretty good image quality and doesn't suffer too badly from noise. The body is metal, it's lithium battery powered and is 3x optical.

Not bad for the money.

"Bridge" cameras are better known as "Prosumer" cameras.

And on every camera which sports Optical and Digital zoom, it will use up the Optical element first.

Digital zoom is not qquite the equivalent of cropping on a PC, as on a PC you have the choice of keeping the original image size (or even reducing it), simply cutting off the stuff you don't want to make a better composition. However, you can zoom in digitally of course.

That's true actually! Bridge cameras is a bit "American"!

That's what you get from browsing DPReview!

Yes the optical zoom gose up to 3x then stops then the Digital zoom starts. I can turn the digital zoom off if i want. Im still sort of getting use to using the camara. Thanks for the links Elbewasser.

Darren

as well as dpreview.com - I find www.steves-digicams.com useful

Those cameras are often called superzoom cameras. Prosumer can be applied to anything as it's in between consumer and professional e.g. a budget SLR can be deemed prosumer.

These cameras generally have large zoom ranges and use fixed i.e. non-interchangeable lenses. These zoom lenses, being fixed are often quite good considering that on SLRs huge zoom ranges are rarely good things as more optical distortions can occur.

Digital zoom is pointless imo, there's not really any difference to cropping a picture on your computer (if you crop off the edges keeping the centre picture) and cropping likely will actually give you a better picture than using digital zoom.

But to be honest we are all getting quite sidetracked here.

Im starting to find my I.T works 6mp camara is eating the batteries. The batteries I got with camara yersterday. Two Duracell Ultra AA batteries are already half down. I have got AA 1700mah NIMH rechargeble energizer batteries that I could use. Would they last longer than ordinary energizer or Duracell batteries. I only use energizer ordinary and once in a while Duracell. I have used uniross rechargeble batteries now and again also. Its a energizer battery chager I have. I got an old uniross Ni-Cd charger some place in the house and two AA and 4 AAA NI-Cd batteries for it.

Darren
Last edited by ney : 23-07-2006 at 21:53

I find NIMH AA batteries last quite well in my digital SLR - and the cost isn't that much different to a set of Duracell's anyway - check the manual and if it doesn't ban rechargables - try and see

I think Panasonic made some special batteries for digital cameras with higher immediate voltage so lower drain but they were not rechargeable. It is why in higher quality cameras, you will find they come with li-ion proprietary rechargeable batteries.

I bought a Kodak V550 a month ago as a camera to have where ever I go. I am very impressed with it. It's small, light and takes excellent photos, and full of features. Well worth the money (which was about £120 on Amazon).

I got a Sony DSC-W30 for my birthday, very impressed with the pictures it takes.

One word - TELECONVERTER

I don't agree with your definition of prosumer - I've never heard of any DSLR being refered to as a prosumer - it generally refers to whether or not it has an electronic LCD viewfinder. All DSLRs have optical "through the lens" viewfinders by definition, while cheap point and shoots have optical by the lens viewfinders, or preview screens on the back, only. As the for the word "SuperZoom" - never ever seen that at all anywhere.

Most prosumer cameras also sport a thread for adding filters and teleconverters/wide angle lenses.

Always use NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) rechargebles in cameras. They last longer per charge than any other type of battery - rechargeable or not. Especially if your camera supports standard AA or AAA batteries sizes.

NiCads and non-rechargeables will only ever work for a few pictures, whereas a NiMH set will last me all day with the lens on continuous autofocus!

You're stuck with the manufacturers, or a cheap imitators, type of battery otherwise.

And from your description, I'd suggest it's a Fuji S-range camera.

I bought NiMH durcell 2500's (Argos), they last brilliantly. I think the highest capacity ones I've seen are 2700s though and this is with a lot of zooming, etc.

The manual recommends I should use AA NiMH recharganles when ever I can. I got Energizer 1700`s out of Argos the other month. Will those be good enough. Not sure if my charger will take li-ion proprietary rechargeable batteries. I fiink its only for NI-Cd and NiMH rechargeable batteries.

Darren

yes, use rechargeables, no point eating through batteries, unnecessary hit to the environment.
RobAnt, I guess people read a lot of different things and can attach different names. Thing is with your precise definition of prosumer, that it applies only to cameras whereas the word prosumer is oft applied to a wide range of electronic goods. For example camcorders never have optical viewfinders just lcd screens and EVFs.

How would a teleconverter help in this case too, it can't help any distortion caused by imperfections in the lens optics, teleconverters are just multipliers to give you an even more (or even less) zoomed in picture. If one looks at non-fixed lenses then the prime lenses (those that do not zoom at all) tend to perform much better than ones with large zoom ranges.