Hi all,

For a while now I have been using the same make & model of Camera (Casio EX-S880) but I have just put that in for repair after a defect with the shutterflex: I hope to get this back around the end of March: fortunately I had another camera of the same make & Model but with a different defect so that one is to sacrifice its shutterflex to the other in a job likely to cost me around £50. This one will be the camera I carry around for general use when I get it back.

Fortunately my car insurance renewal has come down in such a way as to leave me a spare amount of cash likely to be about £200 so I have conceived the idea of getting a new camera that I will use for doing what I hope will be better quality photos. This idea has come about due to the fact that some of the pictures I get on that Casio come out a bit grainy, especially at night - tripod or no tripod. Also I do sometimes take photos that appear in print so I would like to try and be sure of a really decent picture.

The EX-S880 has 8.1MP and only goes up to an ISO of 800. My understanding is the higher the ISO the better. So the question is what camera do I get? I would look for:

- a reasonable number of shooting modes (SM) (eg. scenic, night, portrait)

- a camera that is not too bulky to carry around

- a higher ISO than 800

- ease of use

My thoughts so far have been towards two Samsung models:

- Samsung Galaxy camera (16.3MP, 15 SM)

I have had a look at these in a well-known store where they have one that you can try out. Seems easy to use and has a large screen as well as a 21x zoom. Also carries WiFi & 3G capabilities (so needs SIM card but comes with one supplied): not essential but useful if I want to upload photos onto my Facebook photo albums after taking them). My parents - from whom I asked advice - seem to think that £400 is a bit much for a camera and it is a heavy loss if it gets damaged. However the chain where I have been looking offers a 2yr guarantee.

- Samsung WB250F camera (14.2MP, 41 SM)

Nice looking camera. Smaller screen though and doesn't do 3G but does WiFi for sharing. Also may not need SIM.

I have a carry case that I can keep whatever camera I get. In terms of prices. On matter of prices:

- For the Galaxy: my parents - from whom I asked advice - seem to think that £400 is a bit much for a camera and it is a heavy loss if it gets damaged or nicked. However the chain where I have been looking offers a 2yr guarantee which would be useful if it gets damaged by accident. Also most of the chains I have checked out seem to have this camera at £399.99 but it is, I think, worth noting that there is a shop on Amazon.co.uk called "Samsung Digital" which has this one at £359.99 saving £40. Not sure if the Samsung Digital shop on Amazon is part of Samsung itself or not though.

- For the WB250F: mostly costing around £200 - £220. It is worth noting. however, that another chain has this one at £199.99 which is £15 less than the other chain I have been looking at. I could get the other chain to lower the price it is offering as it operates a price scheme. Not such a heavy financial loss if it goes AWOL or gets damaged but also guarantee of only 1yr.

I have a bit longer to think things over as I don't get paid for about a week whereupon I will see what funds I have. However I would welcome a bit of advice from anyone out there who can perhaps recommend a camera I should look into or someone who has one of the cameras I mentioned above.

Budget-wise: about £200 - £300 but I don't mind going a bit further for the right camera.

Thanks,

Dave

Edited 9 March, 201313 yr by DaveHarries

Panasonic TZ series camera.

S/h Canon G series

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The higher the ISO the worse the graining on ALL cameras, but a decent CCD and lens can make a difference to what point the graining becomes unacceptable.

Also, dont fall for the pixel count fallacy, I did once and dumped the camera after only 6 months; a camera with excellent optics and electronics, and a 5Mp CCD will ALWAYS outperform a camera with a 12-15Mp CCD and poor optics and electronics.

My first "proper" digital camera was an Olympus with x10 optical zoom and a measly 2.1 Mp; but the photos were FAR superior to the 8Mp Kodak that replaced it when the last of the old wafer memory cards died.

The Kodak was rapidly replaced with a 5Mp Nikon, which again give far superior photos to most cameras with 10,12, even 15Mp.

If you dont mind the (largish), size and the fact they are "obsolete", hunt around for a used Nikon D40, D60 or D80 for £100 - £200.

how does the often trotted out saying go? something like: "if you're not printing out to bigger than A3,then you don't need more than 8Mp ?

I'm sorry but I think that ISO ratings and megapixel counts are just not relevant these days with most cameras. For low light performance the lens performance more important (the lower F rating the better) I have recently bought myself a Panasonic Lumix LX7 10.1 megapixel F1.4 -which I am very happy with.

I've never seen one but the Samsung EX2F gets very good reviews in respect to this.

As gentle giant says, there sre some excellent dslr bargains for the "old models" out there, and they'll generally outperform any smaller sensor compact.

Iso performance is important, some cameras produce a lot more grain or noise than others, ie precisely the problem you've experienced with your old one.

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I bought the partner a Leica D last year and the results are stunning. It's more or less the same as a Panasonic, maybe the one recommended above, but claimed to have different lens and better software. Blown up to white board size still no evidence of grain and fabulous colour saturation. She has won a few photo competitions with it.

There is an optional viewfinder which was a big plus at purchase, but the screen is so bright even in strong sunlight it hardly gets used.

i don't think you would be disappointed with the Panasonic version. Lots of the accessories can be bought much cheaper through ebay - Leica leather case over £90, Hong Kong version £17, for example.

I got the Mrs a cannon A3400 IS in silver rrp £150 from curry's for £80 which is really good value.

Pictures are much better than my Panasonic TZ and anything near the price I paid.

The higher the ISO the worse the graining on ALL cameras, but a decent CCD and lens can make a difference to what point the graining becomes unacceptable.

Whoops sorry u r right: got my facts wrong there! I have always had the ISO on Auto setting with the EX-S880 though. My first digital camera was an Olympus C4000 but that got nicked unfortunately. That was very irritating.

Out of interest, in what circumstances can it be good to use a high ISO?

Dave

Edited 10 March, 201313 yr by DaveHarries

There are none really, you use it as a last resort if you cannot get a decent shot with anything else.

Most decent DSLR cameras will give VERY good results up to 800 ISO, and few up to 1200 ISO; on compacts, with their limited size CCDs and cramped electronics, you can get a lot of noise even at 400 ISO

One feature of my D40 - and one that is missing from some of the more expensive cameras in the range - is a higher sync rate for flash, allowing you to use it for night-time action shots to great effect without lugging around a huge, heavy flash gun; it is also the only one with a polycarbonate body, making it much lighter when lugging it up and down a mountain in the tropics.

how does the often trotted out saying go? something like: "if you're not printing out to bigger than A3,then you don't need more than 8Mp ?

Frequently mentioned but it's essentially not true, a higher resolution certainly doesn't guarantee better image quality but it's certainly useful in a lot more circumstances than just for large printing. Higher resolution gives a lot more flexibility for cropping and also means on downscaling you can clean out a bit of the noise as the pattern is random, so the more pixels you have, the more you can work out what the proper colour should have been. On very small sensors a few MP are not likely to make much difference but 20MP on a 1in sensor still has noticeable benefits plus even all the way up to a massive 41MP on the same size sensor (which Nokia offered on their Pureview 808) is also still useful with few downsides.

I wasn't that bothered about resolution as the output from my now aging D700's 12MP sensor has always been very good as it's a big FX sensor but I've been surprised at the level of detail I can extract from the RX100's 20MP sensor at base iso despite its much smaller size. Since then it's been a very long debate in my head whether to move on from the D700 which has been extremely reliable and consistent to the high resolution D800 which has a more checkered reputation.

Admittedly in most cases unless choosing between an old and new camera, the resolution is largely irrelevant as most cameras are in the same ballpark range of resolution but there are a few cases where there is a bigger difference in resolution.

John

Edited 11 March, 201313 yr by JohnMcL7

Whoops sorry u r right: got my facts wrong there! I have always had the ISO on Auto setting with the EX-S880 though. My first digital camera was an Olympus C4000 but that got nicked unfortunately. That was very irritating.

Out of interest, in what circumstances can it be good to use a high ISO?

Dave

Basically any time your shutter speed is dropping too low, every time you double your iso, you can double your shutter speed so basically when you're shooting in not so good light. The catch is that the more you increase the iso, the more noise or digital grain you introduce to the picture which makes it a careful balance between getting a shutter speed suitable for your shot but without too much noise in the picture. The difficulty with iso is that the amount of noise isn't equivalent across different cameras and compact camera manufacturers allow ludicrous iso settings where the image quality is completely useless. For example, many now offer iso settings up to 6400 or even beyond when in reality you can't really use them above iso 400 as the image quality degrades too much.

Generally the bigger the sensor, the better the image quality is at higher iso settings although for compacts most of them use tiny sensors. There are some compacts like the Panasonic LX7 and the Canon S110 which sacrifice a longer zoom for a slightly larger sensor and a faster lens plus there's the mirrorless compacts like Olympus/Panasonic micro 4/3, Sony NEX and Nikon 1 series which are smaller cameras that use larger sensors. However while they're quite a bit smaller than their DSLR siblings despite some using exactly the same sensor, they're generally still not that compact.

I've had a look at the Galaxy camera and I think it's quite a clever bit of kit but it's still using a very small sensor (no larger than its compact superzoom rivals) and I'm not convinced merging the phone and camera are a great idea. I'd rather a separate Android phone and camera then something like an Eye-fi or USB OTG cable to link them when needed.

John

Gentlegiant is on the ball there.

Nikon d40 is a great camera.

I had a Nikon D60 which I think I regrettably sold and replaced it with a much more expensive and complicated model.

The D60 took some fantastic shots for me and are available on Ebay very well within your price range.

My son has a Canon 450D and again that is a great camera which produces some excellent shots.

Cramming too many pixels onto a small sized sensor is the main cause of poor picture quality on low end cameras; unless the manufacturer REALLY knows what they are doing, the pixels interfere with each other at a very low electrical level, causing rogue colours.

BTW, few people have an A3 printer, and 2.1Mp is fine for A4.

One other plus point for my D40, and presumably the rest of the "D" range - battery life !! It is not unknown for me to forget to switch the camera off, but no worries, even after 3-6 months, there is usually still plenty of juice left in the battery. 6 months in China, taking hundreds of photos both with and without flash, and I never needed to re-charge the battery !!!

I frequently have to take photos at night where I don't want to be noticed for work purposes and use iso 3200 on my Canon G12. It gives acceptable results for what I need, but I'm not blowing up big, just putting the image in a word doc. I will try and find something to brace myself or the camera if possible, but with the image stabiliser I can hand hold at quite slow speeds and take pictures in almost pitch black. I have also turned off the focusing sensor so no lights flash at the front of the camera.

The G12 is so customisable. And you can save your 'favourite' settings as a custom setting. It is brilliant.

I have no idea what I would get to replace it with if I ever have to.

I shoot at 6mpx for work then export to 1024 using Aperture. Never had any complaints from insurance companies or solicitors yet. :lol:

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