I'm looking to buy a new Digital camera as after bringing my current one into work for the past 3 years, one of the kids managed to push a button on it and it's gone all up the left

Anyway my current one is only 5MP and to be honest is a great camera, only problem was with it was that it doesn't take great photos at night time on holiday etc. So have been looking at 2 cameras on teh Argos site a 8MP and a 10MP, but not sure which one is better. For a start what's the difference between optical zoom and Digital zoom

Here's the 2 that I've been looking at http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/st...79_1500234959_ any help would be appreciated

Optical zoom is what you want.

Digital zoom is pretty much pointless. You can replicate what digital zoom achieves with even the most basic of image manipulation programs on your PC (such as MS Paint). Ignore any plugging of digital zoom on a camera.

You should also not be drawn in by megapixels. More megapixels doesn't neccessarily mean a better camera. Unless you plan on printing off poster sized prints or doing a lot of cropping, 5 megapixels is fine for most people. By the time you shrink an image down to a 6x4 or 8x5 (standard photo print sizes) you'd struggle to tell if it was taken on a 3mp or a 12mp as long as the image quality is good ..... and the image quality is determined far more by the lens and sensor than anything else.

The Fuji F series cameras are good in low light.

http://www.buyacamera.co.uk/

Have the Fuji F40fd for £85 .... which is an axcellent price for the camera .... but haven't had any in stock for a while now.

The two you have linked to are pretty average, low price compact. I wouldn't expect miracles from them, but they should be OK.

Whats your budget?

Hi,
do you definitely want to buy one of the two cameras you have suggested? I think you can do better...

I would recommend you the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3 (8.1 megapixel, 3x optical zoom, 4x digital zoom, USB, Internal, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital, SDHC, 144.69 gram, 2.5 inch LCD) for £91.
It's one of the best digital cameras on the market now.

Cheers. Mel

The Lumix are great value; I had one of those before getting a Fuji S7000 and now have a Nikon D40X

I bought the Fujifilm F40fd from boots yesterday for £49.99 - it was in a clearance section.

I'd previously had the F47fd but broke it twice being in my back pocket and the LCD smashed. I eventually decided to try and recoup my losses but then seeing the price yesterday I had to buy it again!

Scoop and a half! Well done!

I'm not sure, they seemed to bee good to me and were the right price to be honest
Although t be honest I'd preferrably want a silver coloured camera as I don't like black ones

Thanks for all the advice everyone, will keep looking.

Ok,
Panasonic is not everybodies cup of tea
but what do you think of the Sony CyberShot DSC-S750 Silver which is only £69.99 and silver???
It's a good camera though and has good reviews too (http://alatest.co.uk/reviews/digital...1035,147/?nr=1)

Cheers

That Sony is OK as well .... but there are better cameras.

Of all the cameras mention on the two versions of this thread, if I had to put them in order, I'd go for:

1. Casio Z9/Z80
2. Fuji F40fd (unless you could find it for £50 like Waffles did in which case it goes STRAIGHT to no.1!)
3. Sony CyberShot DSC-S750
4. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3
=5. The two the OP linked to in the first place.

Dunno about the test site mel linked to but I'd always refer to a camera specialist site myself. Try http://www.steves-digicams.com/ and check the conclusion page of the cameras your interested. They give excellent one page summaries and Steves Digicams has been around a long time and is a well respected reviewer of digital cameras.

Interesting reading. Previously I have been a fan of the Canon IXUS series (I've had 3 in the past) but just recently I killed mine by dropping it in the sea on holiday (Grrr....) - so I'm now looking for a replacement and given my tendency to kill or lose compact cameras, I don't want to spend more than £100 on one. Both the Casio and the Panasonic look good.

You might want to look at the Olympus MJU850 (or Olympus Tough as it's also known) ....

http://www.camerabox.co.uk/product1....FQ6T1QodBSCkLg

.... it would probably have survived the drop into the sea.

It's the one that had the advert with the kid chucking it down the stairs into a compost heap. The dog retrieved it and then it got run under a tap to clean it.

Decent camera as well as tough by all accounts.