Page 1 of Digital camera advice wanted - what to buy

My parents want to buy my fiancee and me a digital camera as a wedding present.

We want a minimum of 4 Megapixels but other than we`re not really fussed on extras. Just a good quality camera to take decent pictures to upload onto our computer.

I`m leaving a price out as i don`t know how much they want to spend so we`re planning on telling them 3 or 4 cameras we like at different prices so they can choose.

Anyone got any recommendations to help me slim down my research.

Ta v much

Jane

Kodak DX6440, £199.99 from Amazon.co.uk

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000AZJWQ/ref=br_lf_ce_1/026-9953710-7849226

4 Megapixels, 4x Optical Zoom

Got some digital prints (6" x 4") from a photo lab the other day and was blown away by the quality of them - top job. I don`t normally get prints done but I wanted to see what the quality would look like.

Does everything I wanted off a digi camera.

I`ve got a Sony DSC-P10, which is great. It`s 5 megapixels, but I usually use it at 3.1 to save a bit of memory space, and the picture quality is still superb. It can take short video clips too, and it`s not mega-complicated or jammed full of features nobody ever uses. It`s a neat, compact little unit, too. There are probably cheaper ones available, though.

It`s available at Amazon, here.

Sony don`t supply a case with it, which is my only real beef.

Hope this helps!

Have a look at Steves Digicams (USA), or dpreview (UK) the two bibles of Digital Camera reviews before you buy.

www.steves-digicams.com
www.dpreview.com

I can`t (no one can) recommend what is right for you without knowing a hell of a lot more about what you want to do with it, whether you have cards & card readers already, etc etc,

What I can say is that ALL digicams burn batteries at a rate of knots, so invest in some good rechargables (NI-MH if the camera takes AA`s), and as many memory cards as you can afford - trust me you can never have too much!

Thanks guys.

Have looked at some of your tis, and am going into town on weekend to pick some up and have a little play before deciding what my parents should spend their cash on.

Thanks.

jane

whatever you go for,check out pixmania.com ,very cheap,an extra years warranty and good service too.

Nikon 3700. This has to be the best value camera in the UK at this moment. It is only available from Dixons, PC World group. It comes with a 16 MB card but they are giving some extra software & a 64 MB card free (at this moment). Now to the camera. It is 3.2 MP. If you look back over past posts I did a test between a Canon 400 (4MP), a Kodak (3MP) & my old Fuji 4.01 (2MP). I used a home made eye chart & took all pictures on wideangle then cropped the picture to the eye chart only. After cropping the Fuji outperformed the other two. The Canon came a very close second but the Kodak was very poor. The Nikon 3700 take a fantastic picture. It is able to take 3 shot bursts at the same time 2 different ways, it will also take ten shot bursts at one time. It wil do various time laps pictures. IE flowers opening. clouds shooting across the sky & so on. It also has the BEST MOVIE at this moment. This is 640 X 480 at 30 frames per second. You can adjust this to 15 FPS & also various lower quality movie modes for emailing etc. ALL WITH SOUND. It is fully automatic or fully manual. There are many `Scene` modes. It takes the SD cards. Don`t be fooled by the pictures in the papers, this is one of the smallest cameras I`ve seen & looks better than the pictures in the newspapers. I`ve been looking for either a 10 times zoom camera with full movie on or a 3 times zoom with full movie on for nearly 6 months now. I love my Fuji & it is obvious the Fuji smaller MPix cameras outperform other makes larger ones, but this Nikon is a fantastic piece of equipment. It does more than even I`ve said. There is a full description on the NIKON web site. Although exclusive to the Dixons group in the UK I`ve seen it at some of the foreign sites that deal with the UK for about £230-00 ish. But no extra 64 MB card. My friend was going to bring back a camera from China (he`s just come back after 3 weeks there) but there was nothing at even Chinese prices to compare. He had his camera stolen & bought the Sony 5 MP there (with only 15 FPS Movie ie Jerky). His jaws dropped when he saw what I bought here. Not often that can be said.

This item was edited on Monday, 15th March 2004, 17:49

Nikon 3700. I work in PC world and its £250. Good value with the card and a nice size.

I have a 3.1 Kodak and I can print at A4 size with very good quality. You dont need any higher.

personally i have stuck with canon - man they know how to make cameras. i had the s40 then traded up to g3 and now i have the 10d - all are bloody awesome cameras with amazing pic resolution. email me and i can send you some samples.