Page 1 of camer recommendation/Rob do you fancy another fix it project?

my Panasonic DMC-S5 has some annoying marks on some pictures, from what I read it's dust on the sensor, so I took it apart :(

I'm not sure how it goes back together, well I know how it goes back together, but I think in me taking it apart, I pulled one end of the cable out, and can't see where it goes, so I must have pulled too hard, and am now frightened of making things worse :( It looks like I need to pull out the actual lense bit, to polug the cable in behind it somewhere!

So, as before I'm not sure whether to just buy another cheap camera, as it's mostly used by the missus and I for taking photos of the girls, i.e. it lives on the kitchen work surface, so if they're doing somehting cute in the dining room we can grab it quickly and film/take photos, or when we go somewhere, one of us can just put it in their pocket to take photos/film them in the park, at playgroup etc.

is a £100 camera good enough for my needs? Sometimes the shutter speed has let me down, i.e. there's blur with them moving so fast, but generally I'm happy with the results, or would I really notice the difference if I pushed the boat out to £200?

I wouldn't really want to spend that much, for £200 I'd ideally want an extra battery and case, so that may be wishful thinking, but I'm guessing this year's budget £100 is better than the one I bought 2 years ago, i.e. like most things, what was originally only on the hgh end cameras, gradually gets filtered down.

e.g. I couldn't see the point in wireless, I was telling a colleauge I really don't find plugging a usb cable in that annoying to copy photos, but then he was demonstrating the joys of using your phone with an app as the viewfinder, I'm still not that convinced wireless is as necessary as he says it is ;)

maybe I'll avoid Panasonic this time :(

I nearly got carried away and just went for this 1/2 price Canon as spotted at hukd
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/canon-powershot-sx410-20mp-40x-zoom-bridge-camera-119-99-argos-over-half-price-c-2293569

but then read some bad reviews, but then it's hard for some-one like me to know, is it bad at the £250 price tag, but good at 120?


I could have resurrrected this thread :)

I have another Panasonic (the missus' old one) I can use in the mean time :)

That bridge camera isn't pocket friendly, it's too large. I've got a Fuji bridge camera it's too big to put in my pocket. As for recommendations, I'll leave that to those better informed then me.

I'm happy to try and put it back together for you (let me know I'll give you my current address), but as usual can't make any promises that I won't make it worse.

I'm not sure that dust is the issue either, do you have some examples of the marks? It might be dead pixels.

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I thought it had cost more than it did, so will just bin it, i did some fiddling and saw some sparks, even though i had taken the battery out, so who knows what more damage I may have done :( thanks for the offer though.

so, now to choose a cheapish camera. had a look in cash converters earlier, yeh bridge is bigger than what I want

This item was edited on Saturday, 3rd October 2015, 21:41

Quote:
admars says...
"i did some fiddling and saw some sparks"
Probably the flash unit discharging, it creates a very high voltage and stores the energy in a capacitor. Would give you a jump if you grounded it, but do you no harm (unless you had a pacemaker!).

Discharging it through other parts of the circuit not rated for high voltage could damage them tho. :/

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there's also sometimes a black blob that ppears on the right, the positioning of that and how visible it is depends on how zoomed in the picture is

This item was edited on Saturday, 3rd October 2015, 21:04

a photo of an off white wall, and ceiling (I got it back together again, with some pieces left over :)








unfortunately problem is still there, so back to where I was this time yesterday, with some extra screws and bits of plastic on the floor :)

This item was edited on Saturday, 3rd October 2015, 21:40

That looks like a dirty lens to me, it could be the inside of the lens. You are right that it isn't dead pixels though, and definitely dirt.

The fact that the dirty shows up sharper depending on how close your subject is, does make me sure it's on the lens.


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thanks, it must be on the inside, I read it can be caused by the zoom pulling in dirt, at least that's what some-one said about their Panasonic camera having similar issues :(

the missus's camera is a panasonic fs-3 which works, but we remembered why we stopped using it, it takes too long to fire up get focus, take a phot, so it was fine for the 2 of us on hols a few years ago, but not much good for catching the kids doing stuff :(

This item was edited on Sunday, 4th October 2015, 21:40

hmnn, my shortlist gets bigger each time I google "best camera under £150" (or £200 depending on my mood ) ;)

prices and links from Amazon just cos I found it easiest to add them to my wishlist if they looked to fit the bill :) I think I saw some of them you can get free 3 yr guarantee at John Lewis

Sony DSCW800 £60.99
Canon IXUS 160 £67

Canon IXUS 275 £129
Sony DSCWX350 £138.99
Canon SX610 £149

It really is v confusing, I've fallen into that trap again of reading too much about it now, so I'm starting to care about numbers which in real life for me will be meaningless ;)

Annoyingly one review I read at the weekend mentioned how it was ideal for taking photos of children indoors, but I didn't bookmark that one, and can't remember what make it was,  typical eh :(

This item was edited on Monday, 5th October 2015, 22:35