Please recommend a compact for 9yr old

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GaryK26

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Gary
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It's my son's 9th birthday soon and he has been going on about wanting a camera for ages.
Please could you recommend a compact around the £50 - £100 price.

I have been looking at is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS16 which is priced at around £70.

Being his first camera, I'd rather go for something that is durable rather than packing a whole load of features.

Thanks
Gary
 
GaryK26 said:
It's my son's 9th birthday soon and he has been going on about wanting a camera for ages.
Please could you recommend a compact around the £50 - £100 price.

I have been looking at is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS16 which is priced at around £70.

Being his first camera, I'd rather go for something that is durable rather than packing a whole load of features.

Thanks
Gary
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Whilst he is young something with A,S and P modes would give him a choice to start to learn about how these settings can be used to obtain more than a "snap".

I wonder if a second hand Nikon P5000 /P5100 or a Canon G8/9? although I will admit I haven't got an idea of prices.
 
Do you want a camera to take pics with, or one that he can use in manual mode and get to grips with photography etc...

Last autumn, I gave my son my old Sony compact (around 7/8 years old) to play with. He was three and a half at the time and while he just uses auto (i guess iso/shutter/aperture is a bit much for him!) he knows how to take a pic and then review it.

Any old compact would do imo if the former.
 
Personally, unless he's an unusually serious 9 year old with early onset OCD.. I'd be more realisitic, some thing cheap that takes a reasonable image without a pointlessly high MP count, and start his photographic education the right way - get him taking images first and enjoying it without a hint of education or learning, then get him taking interesting images.. and several years down the line start getting him taking control of the camera.

Start with even the hint of the technicalities of exposure and at best you'll turn him off photography altogether, at worst he'll be yet another photographer obsessing about technicalities and taking exceptionally uninteresting images. There's enough of the latter already.
 
Daryl said:
Pentax Optio WG-1 GPS

It will pass the digestive system of a Cow and still work .....

Can not believe I recomend a Pentax............. the World will now come to an end....
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Tut tut Daryl! :p
 
Thanks for the sugestions guys.....

Simon & Alastair,
Just looking to get something that uhe can take pics with. He has a very creative mind, but anything beyond "press these buttons" would probably put him off. Maybe in a year or 2 I can introduce him to Aperature, ISO, etc (He can have my 40D if and when I upgrade). At the moment though, I think the most important things are simplicity and something that isn't going to break at the slightest knock.

Daryl, I think you missed the budget, the Pentax is like £200 - double the budget that I had in mind. (BTW - we never did get around to meeting up for a beer 2 or 3 years ago!)
 
Daryl said:
Plus how arty can photgraphing inside of a Cow be??????
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Dunno, I saw some shots of the inside of a plastic bag the other day.

But to be fair, they were more interesting than that sounds.
 
How about something with a viewfinder to start them off holding a camera properly (i.e up to the eye), and something that takes AA batteries, so that there will be less chance of tears if "Dad" forgets to charge the Lion battery!

Regards,

White
 
Why not get him a cheap DSLR. You don't have a camera listed in your profile, but if you are Nikon user, grab a D50/D100 if Canon, get him a 300D/350D/10D/20D. These are more knocking around the £100 mark, but they'd all be infinitely more useful than a point and shoot if you are both using the same system as he'd be able to use any lens that you dare trust him with other than a cheap 18-55 kit lens.

As a kid I loved using my mum's Olympus OM-10, and I knew how to focus and meter correctly with it by the time I was 6/7 years old. I had no idea what the shutter or aperture was, but I could load it with film and take a snapshot. Giving your kid a proper camera will be much better than giving him some mediocre point and shoot in my opinion!
 
I bought my son (4 years old at the time) a GE E1050W for under £40, HD movies, 28mm start, 5x zoom, face and blink detection and a touch screen. The images are not that bad at all and the touch screen made it easier for him to use, he uses it loads, puts it in an old camera bag I gave him when we go out (bless :-))
 
I bought a Panasonic Lumix about 5-6 years ago as my camera and have only just finally upgraded. The camera was perfect for me (someone who didnt really know anything about taking pictures) It did have the ability to play around with aperture, shutter speed and ISO but you couldn't go very far with them.

So as a complete novice I found the use of this camera pretty good, although I never really tried out any others so there may have been better out there.
 
I run a photography club for 10 year olds and have to agree that any hint of the technical side fo things makes for glazed eyes..
keep it simple and get them snapping away as Alastair says - the fun of taking pictures is what it ought to be all about, and the technical side can come later if and as needed.
We use whatever basic compacts the school has - one kid went on to spend all her cash on a bridge camera, but she is the exception - most just want to snap away and have no interest in what the camera can or cannot do..
 
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