Digital Photography

I am interested in buying a GOOD digital camera. I have a compact and its fine but I often don't get the quality I want. I have a budget of €4-500 and am looking at SLR type stuff. Am confused when it comes to Digital zoom, optical Zoom and the difference between 6 and 8m pixal. Any photographers out there with advice and outlets to buy.

Hi Greg, welcome to AAM. There are lots of existing threads in a similar vein — try the function.

www.dpreview.com is an excellent source of reviews, buying guides, etc.

Unless you buy outside Ireland, you won't get a decent digital for that budget, but you will get 'SLR-likes' with 10X or 12X optical zoom — my recommendation is the Fuji FinePix S9600, due out next month and likely to retail in the UK for about that price range...

Would have to echo the good Dr there. I have the finepix S9500 and it is by far the best camera on the market at that price range!!! with a 10.3x optical zoom (digital zooms are useless) you would be paying much more to get that with an slr plus you don't have to fuss about with a couple of lenses! I was looking for an SLR type camera too and have absolutely no regrets. The quality is unbelievable! Could do with a better flash but you can get mountable flashes of much better quality these days - you'd be doing that anyway with an SLR. If you buy online, make sure you only buy the camera as I have heard terrible stories about people not getting accessories delivered with the cameras they buy,.

The best value I have seen (in Ireland) for a Digital SLR at the moment is the Nikon D50 with 18-55mm lens in Argos for €580. The same one in Conn's cameras is €699. You could try to get a camera shop to price match if you want the better support

This is 6m pixel camera. From 6m pixel up the quality of the lens and the camera's internal picture processing (jpeg compression) make more of a difference than the number of mega pixels, unless you are going to make A1 and larger size enlargements.

Towger

Nikon rock...I have a D70 myself and recently brought in a D50 for my dad from NY...results are fantastic...we did a like-for-like test (sad I know!!)and the results are the same. Put the SB600 flash on the Xmas list too...it really makes a difference...esp in sunshine when you want to block out shadows.
dpreview.com is great...exellent resource.

Happy shooting!

Firefly

The pixel is each little square of the picture, like if you enlarge a icon on your computer screen you see it is made up of squares of colour, each square is a pixel. The higher the pixel number the smaller the squares the sharper the picture.
Optical zoom is the zoom achieved through the optical lens in your camera.
Digital zoom is the enlargement of the little pixel squares, you loose resolution.
You should always choose a camera based on the optical zoom.

Hi Greg,

Not sure what to recommend but to answer your query about Digital/Optical Zoom - my understanding is:

Optical Zoom - you zoom in or out using the lens, brings an item closer or moves the item away (includes more background) from you depending on what you want.

Digital Zoom - zooms in on the picture (pixels) rather than the scene - this works like cropping a picture as you you usually get closer but lose some quality. Not sure if this is available on a DSLR.

Pixels - dots that make up a picture - unless you're going to be printing larger than A4 I don't see pixels on any DSLR giving you bother.

Thanks everybody. That was all very usefull. I think I am going to go for the Canon D350. Just have to wait a bit longer to get the extra dosh!!!

You might also try looking up www.photographyireland.net.
Quite a lot of very helpful camera bods there too, also very willing to advise newbies.