(no subject)

[taimatsu]

If I wanted to buy myself a reasonable-quality digital camera for UKP100 or less this weekend, how realistic would I be being, and where should I look if it were possible? I want to buy it in person, not online. It's got to be easy to use and produce basic web-quality images. I'll want to be able to plug it into both Windows and Mac computers. If it were difficult to break, that would be a bonus. I have no idea how realistic my budget is.

Discuss.

Comments

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Your budget is tight but feasible -- don't forget that you will probably want a memory card of some stripe to go with the camera itself. We bought my stepdad-in-law one of these (http://www.jessops.com/Store/s31463/0/Digital-Compact-Cameras/Kodak/Easyshare-C310-Digital-Camera/details.aspx?&IsSearch=y&pageindex=1&CatId=236&comp=y) for Christmas and he seems to find it fairly easy to use -- the site suggests it'll work with a Mac and also with a PC but I can't offer you any first-hand advice about the Mac end of things.

As to where you go to get one, well, Jessops are good, larger Tescos seem to be selling them these days (well, the big one near us does), and so would PC World and the like. I have no idea which, if any, of those exist near you, sorry ;)

[taimatsu]

This is handy, thank you! How big a memory card should I be getting? Don't you usually get one with the camera?

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I have a 512 mb card (that would be about £35 from Jessops, nicely matching your budget), which gives me about 300 pictures, I didn't manage to fill it even wiuth 4 weeks in australia.

[taimatsu]

That's really helpful, thank you.

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Some cameras might come in a bundle with a card -- it's worth looking around -- but in general they seem not to. (Many cameras have some internal memory but in practice it's usually very small indeed.)

How big a card is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question -- it'll depend on what you can afford and whether you're likely to be taking loads of pictures in a single session or not. If you're not likely to be taking more than a few at any one time, you can probably go for a relatively small card -- realistically I'd suggest going for the largest card of the appropriate type which will fit into your budget...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Compacts usually come with a memory card but it will be too small.
How big a card you need depends on the resultion (MP) of the camera and how many pictures you're likely to take in one session.

The linked camera has 4MP so a photo will probably be around 2MB. Now you can extrapolate.

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

7dayshop.com do very cheap memory cards if you can afford to wait for mail order. ie get a small card to start with, and some more larger ones later. My 1gig SD card cost me under 15 quid.