Forum camera experts.

[Jayway]

I am buying a NEW camera, phone shots are just not good enough. Looking at Amazon and as I am completely ignorant, hope some of you will advise me ? Panasonic Lumix TZ10 is now half price as its discontinued - bargain ? The Nikon Coolpix looks pretty but its cheap, maybe no quality ? Very grateful to hear your thoughts ? thankyou - Jayway.

[Bearded Brian]

Which Nikon Coolpix?

What are you likely to use the camera for - portrait, landscape, video or just general all round photography?

Pictures to be printed in large format or just viewed on a computer?

I have the TZ16 which is a 14.2 mp but 12mp is fine.

[Bearded Brian]

If you look at pages 1 and 7 of the misc album most of my pictures were taken with the TZ16 and generally on the iA setting.

[Jayway]

Thankyou Brian - - I want some good photos to print large size and send to friends and some decent ones of my next trip (yes I have been watching the LUMIX ads on tv) that will go onto the computer. I didnt think that "discontinued" mattered really, it is a "52 per cent off" offer. Or I could never afford it -. My last HP dear little camera died on a luxor rock when I was doing my artistic bit, on a silly horse that leapt sideways -one must use two hands for clutching - - thankyou -

[Grandad]

Coincidentally Jay a friend has just phoned me and asked me to advise him on what compact camera to get, so I will follow this thread.

I have not yet started searching what's available but in my opinion you can't go far wrong with Canon, Nikon, Fuji, and Panasonic.

One of the most important questions is 'do you need an eye level viewfinder'? Screens are just about useless in bright daylight and I still believe that they should incorporate the 'view through' finder. And I am not talking about those digital viewfinders, I mean the direct vision through the camera body type. I still call these EVF but it seems that can be confused with the digital type.....Oh dear, I'm waffling again

Will report back on what I find.....

[Grandad]

Well that didn't take long. I quickly checked the 270+ compacts in the Which list. Only a few have EVF's and they were all Canons. I DO favour Panasonic because they have Leica optics.

I ended up with two:
Panasonic Lumix FS 35 16mp 8x zoom and available from Amazon with case and 8gb card for £131 a bargain. Only downside, it is a bit limited in functions and does not have EVF.

The one that I will recommend to my friend, well done Jayway, is the Panasonic DMC-TZ10 12mp 12x zoom and even GPS. It is absolutely crammed with functions and controls, or you can just set to Ai as BB has pointed out and let the camera do all the settings. No EVF but a small price to pay for such a super camera.

On Amazon you can bundle camera, case and 8gb card for just £183.29 so I would grab one before they all go.

And with that sensor size Jayway you can blow up to poster if you wish.

And if you buy from Amazon, don't forget to go via Luxor4U

[LovelyLadyLux]

I tend to prefer Nikons but 'tis just moi and best you take the advice of the experts on here! ;)

[bigken]

The tz10 sounds sweet, over the years I've had about 4 panasonic cameras and couldn't fault them

The photos taken in Rome in my album where taken with a 10meg panasonic compact

[Jayway]

And I have found another GB site offering this camera - going down but then there are always extras - -www.electronicsprice.co.uk

[Horus]

If you do buy the camera with the GPS, make sure you either turn it off or set the refresh rate to the longest settings, or you will wonder why your batteries run down very quickly.

[Grandad]

LLL said

I tend to prefer Nikons but 'tis just moi

I aspired to Nikons LLL but always felt they were out of reach for a modest budget. For the first 10 years after I got out of roll film and joined the 'digital set' I had only Fuji's, about six of them. I rate Fuji very highly and 'my other camera' is the little V10. (That is apart from the mobile which is 5mb but as Jayway has said, not really up to it)

Last year I moved back to SLR and Nikon. To be honest I don't think you can go wrong with any of the top 5 or 6 brands provided you chose a camera to meet your needs (plus a bit )

[LovelyLadyLux]

@ Grandad - I always liked Fuji too. I've noticed nowadays that most of the top 5 or 6 brands of camera really do turn out good photos. My point and shoot which I used for years and years was a Canon and it was excellent.