What Digital Camera?

[hitman67]

Kodak Z740: http://www.savastore.com/productinfo...id=44&rstrat=0

A bit under your budget, but comes with 10x Optical Zoom and Great Video mode, as well as loads of clever features. Put the money saved towards a couple of 1gb SD Cards from Scan and you'd have an impressive combo.

EDIT: Just noticed the stock thing, Some places have stock at a slighty higher price, but still good value.

[shiato storm]

big zooms are not always what you want though. to get a big zoom you sacrifice image quality or resolution, if there's an image stabilizer built in you're onto a winner though. long lenses w/out stabilisation are likely to give fuzzy shots, a small hand shake can result in a big fuzz when fully zoomed. oh, and never get a 'digital zoom' - quality drops masively.

[hitman67]

The Z740 is 10x Optical Zoom and 5x Digital

I have one of these sat ontop of the printer infront of me now, it's got a stabiliser on and I've found it takes amazing quality pictures. even at full zoom (you go through the Optical then into Digital) at 5.0MP the quality is really good.

[shiato storm]

ooh, nice one. not one I know but seeing as its so good you better get snapping!!

[TeePee]

Whereabouts in Florida are you going to? I'm off to Fort Pierce in April!

[hitman67]

I've taken quite a few, look in I think it's Video for a section about Cat and Mouse by me, those were all taken by it.

And a word of warning, it has a real liking for Memory when in 5.0MP Mode, as I found, the 256mb from my old camera fills easily, I'm waiting for my free delivery from scan to work then investing in a 1gb one.

Edit: This topic http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=64035, the pics are heavily resized (takes them at 2576x1932) but the quality is stunning, I jumped from a 3.2MP (which I thought was great) and this just blew me away!

[Splash]

Just wondering what people who know about this kinda stuff thought to http://www.jessops.com/search/viewpr...WORD_SEARCH=N& as I'm seriously considering making the investment in a camera that's not an etch-a-sketch...

[Kumagoro]

i want to have a play on these
(I like compact ones so i can make my gf carry it in her handbag)

with 1cm marcro 7x zoon and 5 Mpixel in 95 x 53 x 26 mm (3.7 x 2.1 x 1 in)
thats pretty niffty for about £200 if it was as good as the F10 or F11 in low light
then i would get it.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0509/05...h_caplior3.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0601/06011001ricohr30.asp

[shiato storm]

splash - yup, good camera, only draw back is it used the xD cards, fuji's own...maybe somethng wuth SD cards would be better investment? still, my bro had the forerunner to this and it pumps out very good A4's...

kumagoro - ii don't know about the ricoh's, without a couple of test shots as examples I couldn't makea judgement.

[Alex]

Just wondering what people who know about this kinda stuff thought to http://www.jessops.com/search/viewpr...WORD_SEARCH=N& as I'm seriously considering making the investment in a camera that's not an etch-a-sketch...

I have the Fuji S5500 - the one before that one, and I can really say that I love it. An image stablisation would have been nice, but I've learnt to use it without, and it really does take good pictures for the money, and that zoom lens is brilliant.

The only annoying thing really is the EVF - it's pretty pointless, and some kind of proper viewfinder would have been really nice.

[Funkstar]

Olympus also use XD cards, just bought a 512mb card on Scan for him, was the same price as a 256 retail in town. I believe these are the only two people who use them, pointless if you ask me, i wish they would just kill it off and move to SD.

[Flibb]

A good EVF is better than a non TTL optical view finder, bad EVF is a pain in the arse. Good EVF lets you see what the camera sensor sees, it can also increase gain so you can accurately see in low light. The problem with bad EVF is that it has bad lag and low resolution.

[shiato storm]

...and can give you a headache if used too often!