looking for camera suggestions

reddwarf4ever

reddwarf4ever

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Name
Steve jones
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i love taking photos, my camera goes everywhere with me..


originally posted this in the ' new member ' thread but was advised it would be better here....

I would prefer not to have interchangeable lenses, unless this was an option I could use at another time, I prefer new. photographing in low light situations, museums etc is important, where flash is not allowed. although for this I am unsure if a mono pod or tripod is essential...

here is my original post..

I have a coolpix 7600, which is now approx 11 years old. outdoor shots in good sunlight come out very well. I recently tried using the museum setting to take some pictures at flambards, whilst on holiday....very disappointing ....

I think it's time I moved up....looking around £250-£300
there is such a choice, it's hard to make a decision......so many contradiction reviews...

would really like some suggestions. my present camera just has various modes with no room for any manual settings.

I mainly use the camera on holiday, for scenes architecture and indoor shots, plus of course people.


look forward to any suggestions

thanks
 
I have just bought a Lumix TZ70 for use as a pocket cam, I chose this one as it shoots RAW and has a decent EVF as I dont particularily like using the screen for composition.
 
hi
will look at this, looks promising, what features does it have to support low light photography, museums etc


Amazon have this for £284 with £50 cash back and free 5 year guarantee sounds interesting.
 
as above the sony rx100 would work very well i think. plus sony have a cash back offer on at the moment so it can be had for lower than your budget
 
Fuji X20 is within your budget.
Two of my mentors use one as their travel camera and the results they came back with from this year's trips are breathtaking.
Both had shots taken hand-held in low light inside museums and temples; both were surprised how well they came out.
One of them produced a book from their trip and has A3 prints framed around the house; they are stunning!
The other wrote a Blog while they were travelling; if you find time then have a gander as I suspect the images in there will illustrate my point that the X20 is well up for this sort of thing.
If you don't want to try pot luck, head straight for post 18 Waitatapia Station for museums and post 42 Kaikoura to Blenheim for stunning landscapes.
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/randcinaotearoa/1/tpod.html

I have the X30, same sensor and lens as the X20 but much improved handling; may be out your budget at the mo...
 
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all about personal preference and the application you intend to use this new camera for - do you need lenses etc etc

I suggest you nip down to a local camera shop and try a few out

Les
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
Fuji X20 is within your budget.
Two of my mentors use one as their travel camera and the results they came back with from this year's trips are breathtaking.
Both had shots taken hand-held in low light inside museums and temples; both were surprised how well they came out.
One of them produced a book from their trip and has A3 prints framed around the house; they are stunning!
The other wrote a Blog while they were travelling; if you find time then have a gander as I suspect the images in there will illustrate my point that the X20 is well up for this sort of thing.
If you don't want to try pot luck, head straight for post 18 Waitatapia Station for museums and post 42 Kaikoura to Blenheim for stunning landscapes.
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/randcinaotearoa/1/tpod.html

I have the X30, same sensor and lens as the X20 but much improved handling; may be out your budget at the mo...
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the X30 is within my budget, would be nice to find a cash back offer LOL....but an Amazon reviewer said this "Low light shooting is not great with a maximum aperture of f2.0. ISO compensates for this but beyond 1600 images quickly get very noisy. So if that's your thing this camera may not be for you. Its not mine and I've the DSLR to sort that. At the other end the maximum aperture is f11, which some will wrinkle a nose at. However, even with the best glass the sweet spot for detail across an image is around f11, unless armed with a tripod and a flask of coffee."
as low light photography is important, not sure if this will be suitable.....everything else about this camera is very positive....will have a look at the photos mentioned
 
Sensor size changes everything.
Sweet spot on the X30 is about f4; has the same depth of field as f16-ish on full frame.
Using f11 on the X30 you get real issues with diffraction resulting in noticeably soft images; only to be used for creative effects like starbursts.

f2 has fairly decent depth of field!
If you need convincing, here's a hand held shot at ISO 800, f2, 1/2s.
Everything is acceptably sharp from front to back; one of the joys of small sensor cameras.
Lit only by two head torches; this could easily be printed to A4; expecting an A3 print from a hand held half second exposure would really be expecting too much!
20150725-112533-DSCF6555-M.jpg


I have my X30 set to not go above ISO 800 unless I tell it.
Means all images taken in 'normal' lighting (including indoors) will be printable to A3.
ISO 3200 is only suitable for web use, but they are still usable.

Edited to add:
Here's one at ISO 3200, f2, 1/9s
An illustration of a darned good night out in Bath, not printable to bigger than a postcard but that's fine by me.
20150515-223221-DSCF4249-M.jpg
 
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thanks, very helpful....is there a good resource explaining ISO and f stop settings etc.....having had a camera for many years where everything is auto will mean I will have to learn and understand these settings and what applications to use them on.

trial and error is great, but need some starting points e.g. typical settings for various types of shot..

thanks again
 
Sony rx100 of you don't want interchangeable lenses. Ok low light quality given sensor size
 
There is a great book called understanding exposure that will help but I can't recall the author.
 
Although I like taking control of my DSLR (A mode most of the time), I let my X30 get on with it in P mode. I'd rate the metering and WB as more reliable than my 5DIII.
The X30's electronic viewfinder makes it trivial to check if the exposure is OK and the exposure compensation dial is right under the thumb if it needs a tweak.

The one thing that is really difficult on small sensor cameras is to create shallow DoF images; if all you want is sharp images then leave it alone and let it get on with it :)
 
Hi
Thanks for all the advice, gave me a lot to think about.

have settled for a Sony DSCHX400V....got some amazing reviews and Amazon selling it for £290, but until 6th December 2015 Sony are giving an £80 cash back offer, bring it down to £210....seemed to good an offer.
Received it yesterday and have only tried a few shots indoors on the intelligent auto setting, the produced colours were extremely faithful.
going to spend some time with it over the next few days....doesn't take RAW images, which is about the only negative aspect of this camera.
but I have never had a camera capable of this anyway and prefer to just concentrate on perfecting my camera skills...

This camera is meant to make it easy to send pictures via wifi, think I have to download an app to the camera to achieve this, will,work,it out I guess.
I have an electronic manual, but it doesn't mention much about this. It also has GPS tagging, so that will be a interesting to try.

best wishes

 
Well I bought the
Sony DSCHX400V Digital Compact Bridge Camera
hope I made the right choice, my first few pictures indoors at a family gathering, the pictures didnt seem very sharp and were dissapointing. I used the auto intelligent setting.
would like comments please on views of this camera and my first results.

thanks
ps is this considered better or worse than the Sony RX 100 ?
 
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Two very different cameras to compare in regards to which is worse.

The HX400V zoom goes to something like 1200mm and the RX100 to 100mm IIRC so the RX100 is worse in this scenario.

But for a general walkabout camera where you don't need the reach of the HX400V the RX100 is one of, if not, the best camera in this range, it has a larger sensor, fast lens starting at f1.8 etc..........The RX100 would produce better photos due to these, but it only goes to 100mm, so you need to decide where your priorities are. If you want the quality the RX100 will be better, if you want the extra zoom the HX400V is going to be better.

The RX100 has been recommended in this thread for a reason, this is a Photography forum where the reviews on Amazon maybe not from some experienced photographers, which you will see on here.

Sorry if this seems a little blunt, but you need to decide your priorities and whats comfortable for you to use. For me the RX100 was too small for me to use, so I went the Fuji X20 route for my small camera at the time. As regards to your HX400V have a good read of the manual and practice using it and see if you get better photos, while your experimenting try not to zoom out to far initially as this can show problems more until your used to the camera.

You may want to load some photos on here so people can help with settings etc............
 
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The Sony HX series are excellent compact video cameras, but as stills cameras there's nothing to write home about in my experience (I've owned the HX9V and HX20V). They're very prone to going mushy in low light, the JPGs suffer from over-aggressive sharpening and noise reduction and these settings can not be altered.

Truly amazing video though.
 
reddwarf4ever said:
hi so not such a good camera then.....
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As long as you don't let the camera take too much control it can get decent result, the i+ or whatever mode they called it that does a pseudo HDR thing has this mushy tendency that's very obvious if you pixel peep and atrocious at low light levels.

This is an HX9V being not very impressive in low light..



Same camera, better light and a better result..




The problem is, Sony have been squeezing more pixels onto the sensor of the later HX models and this really doesn't help the image quality or low light performance. They are decent enough carry-everywhere cameras, but you specifically wanted lowlight performance and this isn't the camera range for that.
 
luckily amazon ( good old amazon ) have agreed to refund the camera, less than 30 days old ) so got to,look again, the RX100 or M2 are within my budget, not sure if this is the best route though, one reviewer said it was not comfortable to hold, I currently have a coolpix 7600 which is a similar shape and is ok, but not as comfortable as the sony hx400v.....incidently my previous camera seemed to give better results than the sony hx400v, which is odd considering my nikon is 10 years old.....maybe nikon is the way to go.....i am only changing my current camera, because its started eating batteries....

i know my budget is around £300-£350 and what good images, not fussed about wifi or gps, think these are put in at the expense of quality.

thanks for your help and advice thus far
 
reddwarf4ever said:
I would prefer not to have interchangeable lenses, unless this was an option I could use at another time
Click to expand...
You could get a Fuji X-A2 with kit lens well under that budget (£270 with the usual 10% discount) if you were happy buying refurbished (I've never heard of any Fuji refurb being less than mint condition, I've bought camera and lenses this way, and they come with full manufacturers warranty). You could never change the lens and treat it like a compact/bridge, or you could eventually add another lens to the kit.

http://shop.fujifilm.co.uk/fujifilm-x-a2-with-xc16-50mm-mkii-lens-refurbished.html
 
thank you.....
very rarely buy used, not being snobbish, but sometimes through misuse a fault can occur and not be noticed until its too late, been caught before.

will add this to my list of possibilities, thanks...

PS I assume this has the usual full auto and also full manual controls
 
reddwarf4ever said:
very rarely buy used, not being snobbish, but sometimes through misuse a fault can occur and not be noticed until its too late, been caught before.
Click to expand...
Fuji UK provide a full warranty, my X-E2 and XF 55-200 were both bought from the refurb store and were both in mint condition. I know of at least a couple of dozen forum members that have used the Fuji refurb store. This isn't like buying a used camera that's been round the block a few times. If you really must have new, it's still within budget at £340 from Amazon.

reddwarf4ever said:
PS I assume this has the usual full auto and also full manual controls
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Yes.

There are plenty of reviews online and lots of Fuji users on this forum. You should be able to download the manual from Fuji - it's always worth reading the manual before buying a camera. And do give yourself time to get familiar with a camera before walking into a situation where you want to get results. Practice does pay off.
 
reddwarf4ever said:
thanks, very helpful....is there a good resource explaining ISO and f stop settings etc.....having had a camera for many years where everything is auto will mean I will have to learn and understand these settings and what applications to use them on.

trial and error is great, but need some starting points e.g. typical settings for various types of shot..

thanks again
Click to expand...

To answer your question about starting points try and pick up a copy of 'Understanding Exposure' I think its by Bryan Peterson ( but I could be wrong on this)
Second don't get hung up on settings etc, most modern cameras are cleverer than you are, I go walking frequently with a retired pro tog , he uses a sony P&S on auto and takes pretty good pix
I used to get hung up on settings until I sold most of my Canon gear and bought a Fuji XT-1, it spends 90% of its time on auto everything unless I want a specific effect
 
troutfisher said:
To answer your question about starting points try and pick up a copy of 'Understanding Exposure' I think its by Bryan Peterson ( but I could be wrong on this)
Click to expand...

Correct, a very good starting point for a novice. Well worth searching out his youtube channel too.
 
Sony RX100 - MK1

very reasonable priced now - takes great photos and is a compact.
 
After all the sensible advice about Fuji X20-ish and Sony RX100-ish cameras why did the OP jump for a long-zoom bridge camera?
 
Ulfric M Douglas said:
After all the sensible advice about Fuji X20-ish and Sony RX100-ish cameras why did the OP jump for a long-zoom bridge camera?
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You think anyone ever reads the advice given? :D :D :D
 
Perhaps because we get bamboozled with tech when we're new to photography ? It's a minefield if you've not got much experience so I can sympathise if that's what has happened..

Even now, I've just bought an rx100 mk2 for my wife. I'd have bought something which produces images with more "feel" ( Fuji ) but she wanted something small, with great detail and that fits in a pocket to take to NYC. It will stay in auto and come back having taken 8 shots I imagine. It pains me :( but it's her request, not mine
 
damianmkv said:
Perhaps because we get bamboozled with tech when we're new to photography ? It's a minefield if you've not got much experience so I can sympathise if that's what has happened..

Even now, I've just bought an rx100 mk2 for my wife. I'd have bought something which produces images with more "feel" ( Fuji ) but she wanted something small, with great detail and that fits in a pocket to take to NYC. It will stay in auto and come back having taken 8 shots I imagine. It pains me :( but it's her request, not mine
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Wonder what camera you are referring to that gives more feel......

PS to the comments about ignoring advice, this really is not true, making a decision is taking a balanced view of all advice, reviews etc, I had some lengthy ' text' conversations with a lady buyer on amazon, who is a semi professional photographer who takes pictures for company advertising and highly commended the sony camera I bought.....it turns out that I was wrong with this choice, which is annoying. So I dont ignore ANY advice its just knowing which to go with....I do value any advice, but it has to be my decision to accept it or not.......I will continue in my search for my ideal camera....
thanks everyone.
I have just found the Fuji X30 on amazon UK for £283.....wondered what the feelings are about this one...

UPDATE read a review on the X30 and it said it cant match the
DSCRX100M2 for quality, this camera bit more expensive, £344 but maybe can wait till sony do a cashback offer, hopefully £50, ( sorry about the large text, did copy and paste )
 
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Only you can decide what is the most important factor for a camera, Steve. Without doubt, the rx100 will offer better image quality performance due to its larger sensor and the x30 won't match it but it has a quicker lens when zoomed than the Sony. There is also something about the way that Fuji handles it's jpegs which I personally love

These were taken with a Fuji xf 1 which cost £130

out of the darkness ( explored - thank you ) by damianmkv, on Flickr

silhouettes by damianmkv, on Flickr

Of course you can process your photos as you wish and it appears that image quality is most important to you so probably the Sony will be better suited
 
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think I am steering towards the Sony RX100 M2, £344 on amazon ( jusr waiting for a cashback offer hopefully ) or the fuji XA2 is the same price.....
will be using indoors with flash, outdoors architecture scenery and in churches museums where flash is not permitted...

hopefully this will perform well in thiese situations, not fussed about macro or a powerful zoom...

thanks everyone....
 
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reddwarf4ever said:
think I am steering towards the Sony RX100 M2, £344 on amazon ( jusr waiting for a cashback offer hopefully ) or the fuji XA2 is the same price.....
will be using indoors with flash, outdoors architecture scenery and in churches museums where flash is not permitted...

hopefully this will perform well in thiese situations, not fussed about macro or a powerful zoom...

thanks everyone....
Click to expand...

It maybe worth your while and popping into Currys and have a play with some cameras. Take your SD card so you can review the photos when your back home. Thinking about your use and size of camera which you bought (HX400V) you may consider something like the Nikon D3300 which has APSC size sensor and will offer you very good performance over whats been mentioned. Although Alistair's Fuji recommendation is good, myself I would prefer a viewfinder and wouldn't buy the XA or XM series from Fujis as they lack them.

With say the Nikon D3300 it will let you grow as a system as they have interchangeable lenses. Your photography style can be adapted with the amount of lenses which are available for the system. Also, there's £20.00 cashback on the camera at present, so for £279.00 you will have an excellent camera to develop your skills on. It has full auto mode.

Nikon D3300 > http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/camera...m-f-3-5-5-6-vr-ii-zoom-lens-21942035-pdt.html
 
Hi
thanks, I,like the look of Nikon cameras and have had a nikon for 10 years ( coolpic 7600 ) which until it started eating batteries rcently gave good results...

amazon list this as
Nikon D3300 Digital SLR Camera with 18-55mm VR II Lens Kit - Black (24.2MP) 3.0 inch LCD
is this the same offer as currys ? as it looks like it also comes with the vr2 lens kit, but not sure what that is anyway....
thank you
 
The Sony RX100 or the Fuji x30 are both great. Sony has the larger sensor but Fuji for me delivers on out of camera jpegs best.
 
reddwarf4ever said:
Hi
thanks, I,like the look of Nikon cameras and have had a nikon for 10 years ( coolpic 7600 ) which until it started eating batteries rcently gave good results...

amazon list this as
Nikon D3300 Digital SLR Camera with 18-55mm VR II Lens Kit - Black (24.2MP) 3.0 inch LCD
is this the same offer as currys ? as it looks like it also comes with the vr2 lens kit, but not sure what that is anyway....
thank you
Click to expand...

It seems the same, I linked the Curry's one as it was cheaper than Amazon at the time. Not sure now as Amazon prices change all the time. Also, you need to buy from Amazon direct and not a 3rd party seller as you may miss out on the Nikon cashback.
 
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