camera advice

[danohu]

Also....

I do not own a camera. There are lots of fascinating things around me that I would love to be taking photos of. Like all those protests outside parliament, for example. And perhaps a couple of buildings too.

Anybody want to recommend a cheap digital camera? I don't know what the going price for these things is, but I'm after the 'usable (just), turns out recognisable photos, but you wouldn't be heartbroken if it got stolen'. Also, I'll need to either find somewhere in Hungary to buy it, or somebody who will ship it here.

Hmmm...I imagine the problem here is that people like karohemd and [Unknown site tag] who know about cameras, also have much higher standards than I do for photography. Guys, the standard here is that if you'd consider using it, it's almost certainly better than I need.

Comments

[mazzarc.livejournal.com]

pixmania are good, and if they don't ship to you, send it here and i'll get it to you somehow!

as to what to get.. decide on your budget FIRST. then look for cameras.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I've only used pixmania for "country neutral" things like photo calendars and books but I've heard (second hand) from people who had problems ordering electronics from them (delivering the wrong voltage version or cables with the wrong plugs etc.). With a company based in France, chasing up warranty claims etc. might be tricky, too.

[mazzarc.livejournal.com]

Can't say I've had a problem with them. Two cameras ordered, true, they come with battery chargers witht he eruopean plugs, but they also provide a free converter plug with it. They also do a type of warranty I've not seen before, which means that if your camera is broken beyond repair and they can't replace it with the same model for whatever reason, they replace it with one of equivalent or better value.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

As I said, my information is second (or even third) hand so cool.

What annoys me is that their website is occasionally badly coded so you get messages or pages in French as you're going through the ordering process and even if the site is set to English, some buttons remain in French. The template thing for building photo books also alterates between French and English. I believe my last invoice was in French, too.
That's not a problem for me as I'm enough of a linguist to tell what it is but that's just not professional.

Their calendars and photo books are superb, though. While the book template isn't as customizable as I'd like and they assume common digital formats rather than 3:2, at least there's a shrink/fit option, so it's a lot better than the one from photobox. I had a Premiere book made for autumn_storm and twentypence and it was gorgeous.

[tubewalker.livejournal.com]

I have 2 Canons that I'd be happy to sell, what's your budget?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Dpreview is a good source of reasonably unbiased advice on digital cameras.

£150 buys you about 6MP at reasonable quality these days, you should definitely spend not more than that.
Nowadays, the make is pretty much irrelevant in terms of image quality, the difference is in usability and user friendliness. Those two are very subjective so the best you could do is go to a good camera shop (not a big retailer chain like Dixons) and have a look at the various models, take them in your hands so you can see how they feel and if the button are in the right places for you. Pick the one you like best, tell the sales assistant you'll come back next week when you have made a decision and buy it online. :o)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Excuse my rubbish HTML...

[mazzarc.livejournal.com]

ever used Pixmania Ozzy?

[aiwendel.livejournal.com]

I've got a canon powershot A60 which does 2ish megapixels and cost 80 quid on amazon several years ago. For the same money I think you can get something much much better now a days, but the powershot has been pretty good.

Having said that I tried cancelling my phone contract, and to keep me they gave me a new phone free which has a 2MP camera on it which is pretty good, when it's bright anyway. You just have to ask for you code thing to change company and they set customer retention on you, who have powers to do good deals.

[adamdobay.livejournal.com]

I also have a Canon Powershot and a relatively new one, A95. My father got it for me a couple years ago on a discount, I guess it's even cheaper now. In rare cases (like when I try to take a picture of my bunny running around) even the "sports photo" setting gets blurry, but well that's my bunny there. :)
I know a couple of good stores in Budapest to buy equipment. One such store is Extreme Digital, where my camera comes from. On a Hungarian blog about customer complaints, there was one time someone had a problem with them handling their guarantee papers, but my father usually shops there for stuff like this and never had any problem with them. You can find one of their shops in the Mammut shopping centre near Moszkva tér (two stops of metro from where you live though you probably know that already), I think that's the closest to you. I'm not sure they will speak English (well frankly I don't know if anyone speaks English around here, but the safest bet is that they don't, or not very well), but I can help you with that.

[adamdobay.livejournal.com]

Another camera seller you could try is Photo Hall, they have a lot of stuff and they've got stores everywhere. It's much cheaper to buy over here than to order. Also, Hungarian Post tends to lose things, especially expensive things (I recall a case when someone won an MP3 player and when it arrived the box contained an iron bar...).

[aldabra]

Third positive for Canon Powershot (A75; pics blow up to 8x10 fine, and it's survived two years of being schlepped about in a handbag).