Please help a NOOB to cameras choose one for work

[AFK_Matrix]

Hi,

Ok total noob here to high end quality cameras here.

Ok I have been asked to look at getting a new digital camera for work (we are a house builders for your info). Now at the moment we have a Fuji Finepix 2800Zoom camera. Basically from asking the people that use the camera the most the things that they would like improved are the following:

1. Must have a wide angle lense capability as we take indoor shots quite a bit.

2. The autofocus must be very good as we have situations of a white door frame on white walls etc.

3. A Good Zoom for close in work. I take pictures of materials for my CGI work.

4. Can take good high quality pictures of outside the houses as we want to do some photomerging with the images.

5. A camera that doesn't munch through batterys in like 2 days .

Ok well i have been told the make isn't too important but we would like to stay with Fuji if possible. Havn't been given a budget but i would think anything over £500 would be ott as its going out to site so will get knocked around etc. Ok think thats everything, so what would you suggest?

 

[mrk]

With that budget a dslr is defo not the option for you as you will need to carry 2 lenses, a wide lens (10-22 for interiors maybe) and a medium tele (24-85 range) but a compact slr style camera with a wide angle adapter wuld do a job that suits your price and needs.

Canon S2 IS (£275)
lens: f/2.7-3.5
12x zoom so lots of zoom, macro modes for closeup work


CANON WC-DC58A wide angle adapter (£85)
Gives you 0.75x wide angle zoomage

The cam also has image stabiliser so your indoor shots if in dark area can be shot sharp with little to no shake.

 

[AFK_Matrix]

Ok thanks for your advise.

I did have a quick look around on the net and found these 2 cameras as well:

Fuji Finepix S7000

Fuji Finepix S9500

The S9500 says it has a built in wide angle lense, but would that mean for outdoor shots I would still have to carry another lense to replace this built in lense??

Also while watching the Gadget show they did a thing on digital cameras, they said that some cameras even though they have the LCD screens, to actually take the picture u have to use the view finder and just use the screen to view images? What type are these as this won't be any good, my work mates would want to use the LCD screen to take pictures.

 

[mrk]

No idea on the fujis but check out dpreview.com for samples and reviews on those, as for the lcd, that only affects SLR cameras as they use proper optics to deliver the images onto a sensor the same was a film one does to film!