Paging Digcameraisti

I'm thinking of entering the digi SLR arena but I haven't got a lot of
cash to throw at it[1] I have an old Canon A1E that I have had a lot of
fun with over the years and taken some cracking pictures. Having used
point n shoot digi cameras for ~5 years I miss the ability to play around
with f stops shutter speed depth of field etc. So what is in my price
range(£200-250) that is decent? I'm guessing something 2 years old but
any lemons I should avoid and any crackers to watch out for?


[1] Kids ARE a money pit, I know, everyone told us but I didn't expect to
be totally skint. )

 

"Nothing" would probably be the appropriate answer, sorry. You can get a
decent-ish compact for that kind of money but most used SLR bodies cost
more than that.

You may manage to get a Sigma SD9 for that kind of dosh but you'll still
need a lens...

TBH, with your budget I'll reactivate the Canon and if you want to play
around with the pictures on a 'puter, get a film scanner.

 

entwisi wrote

The Gorgeous Emma, occasionally of this parish, just won herself an ebay
auction for a digi slr. She got a generous box full of bits(sans case)
and a halfway decent last generation Cannon for about your budget. The
deals are out there.

 

As the others have said, you'll not yet get a digi SLR for that kind of
money, and I wouldn't normally consider a s/h digital unless it was very
cheap.

There are, however, quite a few SLR style compacts out there. I have an
aged Minolta Z1, which I believe is up to a Z5. There is a budget
version, the Z10, which is a lot of camera for the money.

When I last looked at cameras I found some constant differences.

Minolta make a damned good all-round camera for the money, if a little
fragile on build quality, the image quality is superb, and they use
standard memory cards and batteries. They are also packed with more
features than any other camera at the price. Mine has manual over-ride
including manual focus, as well as Macro, rolling frames, and as much
video as will fit onto a card up to 640x480, and with sound.

Olympus have the best lenses and CCDs, and produce much better quality
images than their specifications suggest. You can usually go for a lower
pixel rating to obtain the same image quality as other cameras.

Kodak make some absolutely excellent cheap compact cameras. We have a
£60 jobby here for Emily to use, and it takes amazingly good pictures.

Fuji seem to have very solid build quality, and are a good all rounder,
but reviews I read suggest it suffers a bit with poor clarity from the
lens and CCD.

 

snip
Try Fuji's web site their refurb shop has some good deals. I bought a
S5500 for about £150 tis unmarked guaranteed for 6months and for my photo
skills more than adequate.......

Trev