Hello all
I am sorry thats its not about volkswagen but i was wondering if some one could give me some help with digital cameras...
I am looking for a cheapish digital camera... maybe second hand if i could find a good one.....i really dont want to spend much over $300 (is this not enough).... what kind of things should i look for???... any brands that i should avoid???....
Thanks for any help

whoa.... that took some searching

i knew this topic had been discussed

http://www.digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au/ 


http://www.aussieveedubbers.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=1747 

whoops...... very sorry..... i must have missed it

nah cool- it was many months back. I just remember cause i was reading it

Hope it helps

Get down to Clive Peters (I think - saw it in the paper recently) and pick up a Canon A40 Powershot for $499. I paid $740 for one last year and $640 for one this year, its a bargain!!!

Its also an excellent camera - 2.1 megapixels (more than enough), 3x optical zoom, blah blah blah..... :thumb

I just bought an olympus 2.1 megapixel with 2x digital zoom for $249 from Harvey Norman - does what I need to do!

Don't buy a Kodak, I bought a DX3500 13 months ago for $670.00 and the switch broke on the bastard, I rang to see what could be done and thay said "waranty is up you will have to pay"
I won't buy anything from Kodak again.

[Edited on 3-6-2003 by Dave Becker]

The 50k/bytes limit on posting pictures here means alot of the $3-400 cameras are TOO good-ie at theire crudest & smallest settings they are still around 70-100kb.
I had to spend another $149 on software to manipulate the images.
What are you trying to achieve?? If it's mainly for internet use a cheapie may be the way to go.

All digital cameras are crap, cheap and nasty. Companies put a high price tag on thier products because of higher megapixels just like stereos in the '80's & '90's with Watts (wat a wank).
It's a throw away society and with technology the way it is, as soon as something new comes out - it's exceeded with the next model, by what seems, the following day, and the model you bought just broke down!

I use a Kodak DC5000 for work (and play), around $1200 new. I found one in JB Hi-Fi for $750, it was the last one they had of a discontinued item.
I recomended an acquantence to make the purchase.
My DC5000 has exceeded 30,000 photos with approx 20,000 of those with a flash when the flash decided to die!
Not bad I say - if you can find one of these second hand go for it.

Make sure you find it easy to use - no point having something you can't use.

You don't need high megapixels for internet.

Batteries are of concern - these little suckers go thru 'em like nutthin' else. So you will need a charger.

And if you're going to buy second hand, most camera's record how many photo's it has taken, check it, it's just like an odemetre reading.

Does it have all the software and accesories you need to do what you want?

And ask the person you're buying it off, lot's and lot's and more questions.

I hope this was of some help to you as it was to me (you must excuse me I had a schitty day in the oraface)

Sash

I agree that high resolution is a waste of timefor internet, but I find that 2.1 megapixels is more than enough for nearly any purpose (I like photography as a hobby).

Cheap cameras tend to not only have reduced resolution, but generally (from my experience) tend to have poor light sensitivity and poor colour reproduction.

In addition, the Canon A40 has glass lenses - something very rare in its price range.

As far as software is concerned, I have never found it necessary to pay for software just for the purpose of reducing image sizes. There are plenty of options available with freeware, shareware, etc to manipulate image sizes without paying for software.

We have a Kodak 1.3 megapixel and as you can see by most of our pics posted here on the forum, it works really well. Yes I have to reduce the image each time as its smallest sellings produce also a 70 - 100k image.

We can make the image page size and its still a good image - have to reinterate the light quality thing - Kodak has a bloody good flash and works really good indoors, even without a flash.

The batteries are a pain but we have a dock now and wont buy a camera now without one. We got it for 550 with the dock twelve months ago and is probably worth half that now.

One hint is that it is best to get optical instead of digital zoom. Digital just makes the pixels bigger - optical keeps the image quality. I find the Macro option hady to as a geographer for photographing very small things. Like students homework!

I have just bought a Nikon Coolpix 5700. great camera, but not much chop for posting pics on here as they are way too big, way over the 50kb limit. but does it take some clear surfing shots, yahooo!! i bought it for taking surfing shots of us and we'll use a lot in indonesia this year, taking shots from the top of the cliff ect. also the more pixels the better you can blow up the photo. it is 5 pegapixels and has an 8 times zoom. also to download pics ( if you'r not carrying around your laptop) the best way i've found is an X-Drive. can hold up to 10,000 pics and you just plug in and download. cheers, fish

Dude ... no meaning to flame thee guys posting but the only one who has given any usefull information is bronze and kruizing kombi.

I sell these things for a living now and i suggest you first go to the following site

http://www.dpreview.com 

it has heaps of review's etc and also forum's abotu digital camera's.

I then suggest you go to either your nearest Harvey Norman store or a decent camera shop (not a kodak booth in a mall but a real camera store which specialises in camera's)

You just need to know what you want to do and if the sales guy is pusshy just go somewhere else.

My 2 cents .......

As far as posting photo's on here all the camera's i sell have the software to reduce the image size so you can post it .

what you dont want to do is make the mistake of buying a camera only for postign shots on the web if you want to use it for other stuff too.

:vader

Pick up a couple of digital camera mags from the news agency and read the reviews on different cameras. Different strokes for different folks. cheers, fish

Thanks for all the help everyone.... i ended up witha Creative PC-CAM 850.... it may not be the best but does what i want.... 3mgp 16mb built in 4x digital zoom.... $260
Thanks All

In the latest Officeworks dogologue there is an A300 Canon for $499 but in the Ebay camera section the same one from Japan is $319 + freight. Does anyone know if it is safe to buy o/s stuff minus warranty? volma1

i just bought a olynpus c150 2 megapix with a 32 meg memory card at harvey norman with all the gear bag etc, for $249.00

There are some good deals on digitals at the moment so do your currency conversions well cos don't know if you can do better then buying at home and with some sort of warranty.

Sticking to my SRL at the moment and paying for the conversion to digital. Much sharper pics. Will never go back to less than 3 megapixels

I would suggest buying off ebay. I got a Canon A70 for $560, I think the rrp is about $700, so you do save a bit. It was shipped from Hong Kong. And it has a full warranty.

It's a good camera, easy to use takes pretty good photos. It's handy, but if I'm taking photos that I want to keep I use my sturdy old K-1000.