Digital Camera for £50-60?

Vegeta

Vegeta

Vegeta

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Hi. I'm buying someone a gift and I want to get them a digital camera for £50-60. I hear things have changed in the market a lot and for that budget you can get something decent? All it will be used for is:

Taking pictures on days out (to zoo's or whatever)
Taking pictures of people on occasions such as birthdays
Taking pictures on nights out maybe and gigs etc.

Only requirement I have is that I'd prefer it to be rechargeable rather than external batteries. I'm sure whatever MP and zoom it has will be more than enough. Thank you.
 
An Ixus can be picked up on the bay for that sort of money and they do a good job of all your requirements.
 
£60 isn't going to buy a great camera for nights out I'd say, but if that's the budget then so be it. Any of the camera's in that price range will do an equal job because your budget is pretty low. I'd go for a Fuji in that price range, see what deals are about...
 
I had a Nikon Coolpix 3MP from absolute years ago that cost me £100 at the time and that did a fantastic job. Surely a brand new £60 14MP camera will be a lot better? I'm not after professional shots but I'm sure they will still be really good or am I deluding myself? lol.
 
Vegeta said:
I had a Nikon Coolpix 3MP from absolute years ago that cost me £100 at the time and that did a fantastic job. Surely a brand new £60 14MP camera will be a lot better? I'm not after professional shots but I'm sure they will still be really good or am I deluding myself? lol.
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Yes in some ways...but most of the low end digital cameras in that price range promise far more than they can deliver. 14mp in a small sensor, means dark pictures with a lot of blur on the night out photo's. Thinks facebook bad photo's, we've all seen them, and that's because of the sensor size and crammed in pixels, which means a slow shutter speed. throw in the slow response time, and you'll see where I'm coming from. However, give them a decent amount of light and the results can be perfectly good...
Went out yesterday and there are plenty of models available, however many felt cheap, and they were hard to use. best of the bunch seemed to be a Canon, £60 can't for the life of me remember the model. Next was a Fuji, again model name escapes me. Both were 12 mp
 
Vegeta said:
So would I be better off getting a older camera with 5-6MP?
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No (IMO).

The gadgetshow did a review of the Canon A800, Fujifilm AV200 and Nikon L23 super cheap camera's.

I can't remember which they preferred, but the Fuji created a shot that the T3 magazine was happy to print in one of their articles..


I don't agree with (most) of the post above, you can only compare camera's at the same ISO rating, which is how they are assessed, so shutter speed/aperature is meaningless in this context, as that will be identical for each camera at the same ISO, and despite the obvious logic of more per-pixel noise in higher MP camera's, the technology has improved over time, such that it's not all doom and gloom, Not long ago you couldn't dream of using ISO 800 at all on a cheap 4 MP camera, now it's generally good enough for normal prints using a 12 MP Camera..

Personally, I'd check reviews out, and look at features you need, and what is recommended in the budget range, as quality varies massively.

Oh, if you want to shoot good pictures on a night out, then a focus assist light is a must IMO, having the best high ISO ability isn't that much of a deal, the flash is there to help, if the subject isn't in range of the flash, no cheap camera is going to do a good job in a dingy nightclub..

Reading around, I'd tend to go with the Canon A800 or Fuji AV200, they seem to get good reviews for the price, both take AA's, the Canon has more zoom, the Fuji does HD Video.. for £50, I don't think you can go wrong..
 
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To add to the above, if you can find a camera in your price range that has sync flash then that's going to provide much better night club photos.
 
Russinating said:
To add to the above, if you can find a camera in your price range that has sync flash then that's going to provide much better night club photos.
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Both the Canon/Fuji have slow synchro, which was a good point!

I'm sure your local highstreet photo shop would have both in for you to mess around with..
 
Demon I was kinda making a general comment about the sensors, I do agree you can do some stuff that is decent, but if you just go out, stick it in auto and fire away the sensors these days don't do a great job....factor in the beer/alcohol and thus you get the great facebook shots we all know and love. More of the point I was trying to make is the shutter lag and slow operating speeds. I had a quick play of some cameras in the OP's price range and was appalled by the lack of speed compared to my wife's Fuji F45 which isn't fast. Shutter lag was in the region of about a second, and the low light performance just tried in the shop wasn't great. You could improve the shots, but I just left them in auto to see how they fared...
 
I'm willing to increase my budget if it means I can get a camera with built in rechargeable batteries? Just for convenience it's a must.
 
Still some available around that price range. Lot's of deals at the moment, I guess you'll need to pop down to a shop somewhere and have a play...you could always get some AA rechargeable's however...
 
Vegeta said:
I'm willing to increase my budget if it means I can get a camera with built in rechargeable batteries? Just for convenience it's a must.
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A lot of low end cameras' with rechargeable batteries still give you an external charger, and you have to take the battery out..

As 3dcandy says, you could get an AA charger (Lots of 1 hours ones around) and rechargeable AA's.. in the end it's more flexible, should you run of out battery charge, you can pop in a shop and get some normal AA's and carry on!
 
I've had that before myself using rechargeable AA's and my current camera just charges via USB and I find it a lot easier. Lot less crap to carry around and just less hassle.
 
Panasonic, has optical image stabilization. I'd go for that, grandparents have a Lumix and it's pretty damn good...
 
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