Digital Camera £200-£300

[Bloo]

Though I'm an avid DSLR fan, I think for what Squid wants (as described), the Fuji will provide by far the best value for money - for his needs - in the UK. Especially if you're not sure what you're looking for and just want a good point and shoot. I remember it was incredily hard to get my head around it all and it took ages. So if you don't seriously want to take the step up to a DSLR, there's little point and spending hours and hours getting your head around all the lenses and functions etc. And remember that prices vary greatly between US and UK.

I do also agree however that it's really not difficult to get to grips with the basics of a (even basic) DSLR - have it on auto function and snap away. The quality in general will blow your mind. But for anyone who's not interested in taking photography further as a fun hobby, this really is of little interest.

My 2 p

 

[Squid]

Though I'm an avid DSLR fan, I think for what Squid wants (as described), the Fuji will provide by far the best value for money - for his needs - in the UK. Especially if you're not sure what you're looking for and just want a good point and shoot. I remember it was incredily hard to get my head around it all and it took ages. So if you don't seriously want to take the step up to a DSLR, there's little point and spending hours and hours getting your head around all the lenses and functions etc. And remember that prices vary greatly between US and UK.

I do also agree however that it's really not difficult to get to grips with the basics of a (even basic) DSLR - have it on auto function and snap away. The quality in general will blow your mind. But for anyone who's not interested in taking photography further as a fun hobby, this really is of little interest.

My 2 p

If I go for the non-DSLR, the Fuji for that money seems great. However, on some reviews it says that the absense of an image stabiliser for zoom photos may be an issue. Do you have any views on this bloo? i have a colleague who has a previous version (5600) who says its not much of an issue.

Squid

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

Well I'm not Bloo but I'll tell you how this works:

With these types of cameras the lens pokes out of the front of the camera body, when it is zoomed in all the way (or not even all the way necessarily) the movement of your hands becomes a bit exaggerated, even small movements such as taking a breath or the natural unsteadynes of your stance can show up as blurry or unsharp pictures. Fujifilm cameras have a method of dealing with this called "picture stabilization". Basically, in situations that the camera detects that shake may become a problem (lowlight, long focal lengths etc) it automatically boosts the ISO as high as possile and adjusts the shutter speed to make for as quick a shot as possible. The thinking behind this is that with a faster shutterspeed, camera movement is less noticable.

I've heard mixed reviews about fujifilms picture stabilization technology, but most seem to dislike it because the changes it makes to the settings more often than not result in lower quality photos and it doesn't always work as expected. If you pick this camera I'd make sure that you can turn this function off when it is not wanted, and get a tripod for shooting when zoomed all the way in, and in low light situations.

The Pentax K110D has no method of dealing with camera shake, though you could manually employ the same technque if you needed to. The K100D has a great feature that entax calls "Shake Reduction" in which rather than adjusting the exposure settings on the camera, the image sensor moves along with the shake of the camera. There is a small gyro in the camera that sends information to a sensor shift mechanism, this information tells the camera about the nature of your shaking and allows the sensor to compensate for it. Like the Fujifilm however it only works to a certain degree, and if your are one who is particularly shaky you'll still need a tripod.

SLC

 

[Squid]

Good info again..

cheers..

 

[Bloo]

If I go for the non-DSLR, the Fuji for that money seems great. However, on some reviews it says that the absense of an image stabiliser for zoom photos may be an issue. Do you have any views on this bloo? i have a colleague who has a previous version (5600) who says its not much of an issue.

Squid

Well I can only tell you that the photos (literally hundreds) I saw from my friends holiday to Antartica and South America (over Dec 06) were stunning and I cannot recall seeing any evidence of this whatsoever. Baring in mind that many of her photos were taken on a moving boat too.

 

[Squid]

Well, i'm getting one in a week or two, and i have decided that i will go for one of the following 2. I do like the fuji, but this canon has come out now, and gets good results.. Also, the pentax seems like a great price; a little over budget, but good.

The canon here..

Pentax K100D here

Squid

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

I'll chip in one more accolade for the Pentax! It is a camera that you can grow into with lenses and equipment to suit the type of photography you'll end up gravitating towards. My neighbor bought the K100D and after having a chance to toy with it I'm honestly a little put off that I didn't buy it myself and spend the rest of what I spent on my camera for lenses. The low light performance is great.

I'll clue you in to one thing though. Next month (August) Pentax is releasing a "K100D super", it will support the new ultrasonic lenses that are coming out in the pentax line, along with a few other improvements. I think it is going to be the same price as the current K100D, the regular K100D will go down in price, and the K110D will be eliminated.

If you go for the pentax (I can recommend it personally) I'd suggest you wait till next month.

Check it out at www.pentaxSLR.com

SLC

 

[geo7x]

Ok, well although i havent compared any, i bought a Pentax K100D yesterday and i love it. It's really easy to use, and the automatic functions are amazing. However it also has all the manual stuff which means you can experiment more with the settings.

So, yeah, although ive never compared it to anything, i think it's fantastic, if you want to see some pictures that are pretty much the first things i took then look at my thread in household pets

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

Ok, well although i havent compared any, i bought a Pentax K100D yesterday and i love it. It's really easy to use, and the automatic functions are amazing. However it also has all the manual stuff which means you can experiment more with the settings.

So, yeah, although ive never compared it to anything, i think it's fantastic, if you want to see some pictures that are pretty much the first things i took then look at my thread in household pets

Congratulations!

We can add one more to the ever growing number of Pentax users on this forum. I know of at least 3 of us who have bought Pentax DSLR's this year.

SLC