What digital camera?

xtreem

So my sister is buying one, and I'm helping her making a good choice.
So she wants:
- Compact camera, not too tiny but not too bulky.
- Colours pink, red, blue, green not black or silver.
- Minimum 7.0 Megapixels
- Minimum 3x optical zoom (preferably 4x+), digital zoom doesn't matters
- It has optical stabilizator
- It has to be Panasonic, Samsung, Canon, Nikon, Olympus or Sony.
- It must have a video option with at least 640x480 resolution.

I also want: (this is the bike related part)
- Ability to take mulitple shots in short time, like you see on pinkbike: Example
- Ability to take a shots in a split second after I press the button.

So far we are considering the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3 and if the budget streches
then maybe even the FS5 the red one:


Please post what ever camera you know that fullfils most of the requirements. Cheers.

papasmurf.

my girlfriend got a Pentax Optio W60 recently, that covers most bases, plus is waterproof

xtreem

Thanks for that, but I'll strugle to find any Pentax cameras here.
And looks a bit pricey.

Forgot to tell my budget, it's £100 or maybe even £150 but that really depends
because of the different country.

Other options to consider?

Big Shoes

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Cyber-shot ... 087&sr=1-8

The wife has one of these and it is amazing, great pictures and video.

Mickey Eye

Forget all that megapixel bollocks.
http://www.lomography.com/holga/

(Also available in red, green and multicoloured)

xtreem

Big Shoes nice one.
I think it's available in a shop around here, and within the budget, so I will consider it.

Mickey Eye
Sorry mate. I forgot to put in the original post, the camera has to look nice.

GyatsoLa

www.dpreview.com is a great website for comparing cameras.

Every review comparison I've seen rates the Panasonic Lumix range as being pretty much the class leader, especially for landscape type shots. If you look around, you can sometimes get the older models on a good discount price.

butcher of bakersfield

Xtreem wrote:

- Colours pink, red, blue, green not black or silver.

Not picky then?

- Minimum 7.0 Megapixels

Try not to worry too much about the pixel resolution. Unless you're blowing your pictures up to about 8 feet, then pixels isn't really going to come into it. Optical quality is far more important.

- It has to be Panasonic, Samsung, Canon, Nikon, Olympus or Sony.

Some of the Fuji cameras produce some very nice shots. Maybe worth adding to the list?

- Ability to take mulitple shots in short time, like you see on pinkbike: Example

Impossible. At least not in the same frame. That picture is photoshopped. It's the only way to do it with digital, unlike film cameras - which is a shame.

You can take multiple shots in different frames however. But you're not going to a camera snap the amount of frames per second like you see in the mags on your budget. Or anywhere near. Screen grabs from video is your best bet.

Surf-Matt

I have the Lumix TZ5 - you can get it in blue.

I'm pretty confident that it;s the best compact camera you can buy. It wins every test, has nothing but the highest scores and is utterly brilliant.

I think it's been superceded by the TZ6 now but you can still pick it up in many shops.

The TZ5 has 10x optical zoom rather the 12x but is otherwise very similar.

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/P ... index.html

Oh and it does ultra fast "sports" shots too - ideal for MTB and other sports multi frame shots.

xcracer

I bought a Kodak M863 for my sister recently. Great value, easy to use and good quality video and pictures...oh and comes in all sorts of colours. Costs about £80 so you'll have plenty of change.

xtreem

GyatsoLa, thanks for that website, but I prefer the www.imaging-resource.com more.

butcher of bakersfield:
- What ever colour, just not black or silver.
- Yes I know, pixels are important when you want to print big picture. And i agree optica
l quality is the more important stuff. But when someone says I have 8MP on my mobile,
and I have 5MP on the camera, it's a bit embaracing, you know what I mean...
- Fuji, post if you know a good one, will try to find a shop that sells it.
- Hmmm that makes me thinking, then all I need is the camera to be able to take few
shots in short time, so I think I can do the rest in Photoshop. Cheers for that.

Surf-Matt, that's a very nice camera, but its way outside our budget.
If I had that much money that would be my first choice. Shame.

xcracer, the Kodak M863, looks nice but the "Digital image stabilization" puts me off
a bit, because it's not optical, but still I'll add to my list. Cheers.

My list so far is:
Panasonic DMC-FS3E-P
Panasonic DMC-FS5E-R
Panasonic DMC-FS7G
Samsung L210 red
Sony DSC-W130P
Sony DSC- W120
Canon PowerShot A480
Kodak M863

Panasonic DMC-ZS1S ---- this is the priority no.1 but I don't know the price
and I don't know if I can find it overhere. That 12x optical zoom is very usefull.
But i doubt that is within my budget, will see.

Cps

Like others have said

With a budget camera go for one with the best lens

I would choose one of the Panasonic options you listed as they have a Leica lens - never seen a really bad picture from a pana - except those out of focus - shaky etc....

And the whole Pixel thing - it just eats up memory - thus less pics / video time - you will still get cracking pictures with 6m and a good lens.

rolf_f

Xtreem wrote:

But when someone says I have 8MP on my mobile,
and I have 5MP on the camera, it's a bit embaracing, you know what I mean...

But then you just point out that it doesn't matter how many pixels you have, if the lens is 3mm across and made from something that came out of a christmas cracker, the resulting image is still going to be crap!

Also, if you don't go around doing big enlargements (and, I am ashamed to admit I have never actually had a digital photo printed!) the only result of a huge pixel count is that the photos eat your hard drive - I went to Colorado last year and by the time I had finished editing pictures (and retaining the originals) I had clogged up 10 gig of hard drive.

paulfitz

A few years ago when I was in uni doin graphics I was after a digi camera, so I went to the photography tutor and asked for his advice.

He said Fuji were the best camera's becasue there pixels have more sides, (ocatagonal instead of hexagonal if you like) so they tesselate better whilst still producing outstanding quality.

Just my tuppence worth like...

xtreem

Thanks guys for all the info.

[b]Cps[/b] wrote:

I would choose one of the Panasonic options you listed as they have a Leica lens - never seen a really bad picture from a pana - except those out of focus - shaky etc....

Thanks for those words, Cps, I appreciate that.

So we went out today at lunch time with my sister, and we bought the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3 in Pink.
We were close to buy the Sony W130, but we've decided to go for this one, pic: