Camera for a friend

JohnN

JohnN

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Hi,

Sorry I know this is going to be a bit vague, however a friend has approached me saying they're going to Florida in a few weeks and what to take.

Initially I thought a compact such as the Lumix LX7, then he said that in time he might want to do birds in flight, macro, water drops, kids running around etc etc.. so I start thinking about a SLR - 60D perhaps, but then it just gets very expensive for something he might not get into.

So I was thinking a decent compact or bridge for the holiday - see if he gets into it then move to a SLR, so now to the question - given the current market what would you go for?

Chatting to him it looks like he'd go to £250-350 on initial budget.
 
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This will fly in the face of all other opinion that people will give, but I'd recommend any of the many more advanced travel compacts available.

I've done 2 holidays this year and taken my D700 and some kind of Canon sx compact that I got for £100 in currys. The camera I used most, by a considerable margin, was the canon, as it slipped into my pocket and didn't weigh me down. Sure the image quality isn't as good as the D700 but I'm taking holiday snaps, not making art, and the photos will get printed at 6x4 or put on facebook.

Will it do birds in flight? No probably not, but I don't think that's something you can do terribly easily with an SLR without a lot of practice.
 
Thanks guys - to be honest I'd be amazed if any compact would do BiF - but my thinking is that a smaller cheaper camera would get his feet wet, plus if I recall some are pretty good as basic macro too.
 
JohnN said:
Thanks guys - to be honest I'd be amazed if any compact would do BiF - but my thinking is that a smaller cheaper camera would get his feet wet, plus if I recall some are pretty good as basic macro too.
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Yes. To have a decent punt at all those things in the OP, he'll need to spend well into four figures and get a lot of learning done first.
 
That SX260 is a newer version of what I've got. It does macro focussing, or close up focus, pretty well. I can't fault it's flexibility, even if it doesn't have the nth degree of image quality than an SLR, CSC, or something like an LC7 has, but TBH, that's only really a concern for photographic enthusiasts like us. For the rest of the world, it's more than adequate.
 
I've just bought a Canon G15 which I think you can get for about £370 with the current canon cash back (which I missed by 2 days grr!). It's heavier and bulkier than some of the sx canons, but I've been very impressed with the quality given the sensor size. It has all the usual modes and manual, can shoot raw but also has the filter effects like miniature camera (in jpeg only). It also has a viewfinder (though no info in it). I'm not sure how it would compare with an LX7
 
I'm guessing you meant budget :)

£250-350 - was in the OP, oh and yes I know - lots and lots!

I've dropped him a link to the thread so he should pick it up in a day or two, from the hype I read earlier the SX260 looks pretty good and if I were to believe their marketing I could ditch mine :D

The G15 looks pretty good too.

Thanks all for the suggestions.
 
JohnN said:
Hi,

Sorry I know this is going to be a bit vague, however a friend has approached me saying they're going to Florida in a few weeks and what to take.

.
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I went to Florida earlier this year. If your friend is doing the theme parks - taking an SLR might be a bit cumbersome to carry around. Also you can't take your bags etc on some rides and have to put into lockers.

I took my Canon G1x to the theme parks and got some great shots - Through out my whole duration I only took my SLR with me when we went to Kennedy space center.
 
I just got a panasonic TZ35 for 160 quid , not ever going to replace the slr , but its a good camera for walking around (20x optical zoom, 16mp and very impressive macro)
 
Thanks again, typically I'm on holiday but hopefully he's reading though this :)

These cheaper ones with the long zoom and good macro do look appealing, I might look into one myself
 
I've used cheap compacts that only cost me about £80 and actually really surprise me with the quality - I would class them very close to that of a DSLR. Of course they can be more fiddly, takes longer to focus etc, but I am impressed with what I have.

I think with compact cameras nowadays the quality are very good than what they were a few years back. And of course you can have macro mode etc on them. Of course they'll never be as good as a DSLR where you can change the lenses for speciality lenses, but for a holiday I wouldn't personally take a DSLR. I have done but looking back I think I would have been better with a compact for holidays. By all means it's your choice, but I've always found it a hassle carrying round a heavy DSLR with me on my neck when on holiday when I could have just had a compact that just fitted into my pocket. Sometimes feels like I'm getting strangled ^^.

Canon make some fantastic bridge cameras, I believe it's the Canon G series like G11 etc. I've heard great things about these cameras. If your friend isn't really a photographer, these compacts can have scene modes which can be useful for him (although I'd never recommend scene modes personally).

Never judge a camera just by the price - my cousin had a compact camera, paid a lot for it so thought it would be good... It really wasn't. My camera was way cheaper and had much better quality. Advise your friend to go on sites like Amazon and read reviews etc.

I'm not too sure, but I think the more you zoom in with compacts, the lower the quality of the image. Someone please correct me on this :).
 
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jryans10 said:
I'm not too sure, but I think the more you zoom in with compacts, the lower the quality of the image. Someone please correct me on this :).
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only if you use the digital zoom (which essentially isn't a zoom at all , all it does is crop the image) , with a good quality lens the optical zoom will be fine.

The major problem with compacts is getting a shallow dof - because the sensor is tiny compared to a DSLR Dof is quite large even at wide appertures , this is great for getting everything in focus, but not so hot if you want a nice bokeh
 
big soft moose said:
only if you use the digital zoom (which essentially isn't a zoom at all , all it does is crop the image) , with a good quality lens the optical zoom will be fine.

The major problem with compacts is getting a shallow dof - because the sensor is tiny compared to a DSLR Dof is quite large even at wide appertures , this is great for getting everything in focus, but not so hot if you want a nice bokeh
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Yeah that's true. And obviously with a tiny sensor you ideally want to shoot during daytime and never really when it's darker as the images can get really grainy.

Thanks.
 
jryans10 said:
Yeah that's true. And obviously with a tiny sensor you ideally want to shoot during daytime and never really when it's darker as the images can get really grainy.

Thanks.
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To be honest ive not noticed any major problem with noise in low light condition on the TZ35 (although there definitely is on bargain basement compacts)

Obviously you get noise at higher isos - but that is equally true of DSLR - theres very little difference in quality between the outpiut of the panasonic and the output of my 40D
 
big soft moose said:
To be honest ive not noticed any major problem with noise in low light condition on the TZ35 (although there definitely is on bargain basement compacts)

Obviously you get noise at higher isos - but that is equally true of DSLR - theres very little difference in quality between the outpiut of the panasonic and the output of my 40D
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Yeah, totally agree.
I think what I meant about the zoom is that a lot of compacts have variable apertures, like f2.8 - f6.3 or something like that and I've noticed that when I zoom in even at daylight, the camera has to use a high ISO to compensate for the smaller aperture and hence the photos aren't really that good.

Thanks :)
 
A lot depends on the end use of the photos, and how discerning the viewer is. Yes, noise starts to become evident on most compacts over ISO400, to varying degrees. It starts to become noticeable or ugly mainly on low light photos at 1600 -3200 or so. But if you're only viewing on screen or small prints, it won't be too obvious, and in my experience, most people outside the photographic community honestly couldn't care less, if indeed they notice at all.
 
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