Cameras for Primary School to use

lawrie29

lawrie29

Balloons! Yay!
Suspended / Banned
Messages
5,051
Name
Lawrie
Edit My Images
Yes
I am part of a fund raising committee at my girls primary school

(handy link to auction we have on this thread http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=1692431#post1692431)

and the cash at the moment is to buy some decent digital cameras for the teachers to take shots of the kids in classes. They can use these for displays, but also to show the kids completing various parts of the curriculum. Having this evidence is good, apparantly.

So with a budget of about £150-200 per camera, including a bag, memory card, rechargable batteries etc.

It needs to be pretty good in low light, good onboard flash, easy to use. It needs to be capable of taking picture inside and out, in the school hall and on day trips.

THe pictures also need to look OK projected onto a screen, so needs reasonable MP.

Oh, and the teachers are not togs and won't have time for editing, if that helps.

I was thinking of a fuji bridge, decent zoom, good MP, ok in low light, takes AA batteries, but I am biased cos that is what I have.

Any thoughts (what does your kids school use?) gratefully accepted.

Thanks
 
My kids school uses a Nikon compact, not sure about the model but they do everything you have just mentioned above.

From what i've seen at the kids open days and the likes i have been very happy with the teachers togging.

They also use the projecter at the end of term day to show the things they have done through the year and these are also very good.

It is a Nikon Coolpix compact i have just been told but im sure there is a good few models out there.
 
I can understand why you think a Fuji bridge camera, I own one too :) But if its going to be used for school trips, would teachers really be wanting to carry around a bridge? Afterall they are quite a lot larger than a compact.
 
Your fundraising idea is genuinely a good one but just like another poster has replied, it may feel a wee bit chunky for teachers to carry around. Besides, a basic point and shoot camera is really all that is needed on school trips [for the last 2 years, I have been a very active parent volunteer on a daily basis and have helped out taking photographs on trips/curriculum plus very active fundraiser/parent council member!].

Having had a bridge camera myself, I am of the thought that if "you don't use it you lose it!" with regards to staff remembering what the settings are for etc. Some teachers would even assume that it would be too complicated to use believe it or not LOL!!

I would think that a couple of decent point and shoot cams would be a better idea plus a couple of 1 gig memory cards which are relatively cheap from 7 day shop - also re-chargeable batteries from same place.

Whenever I had been handed the school-owned camera to take shots of activities and trips, there is never enough memory as the staff always use the poxy memory card the camera came with such as 16 mb!! :eek:

PS - just a thought - ask the school if they could purchase items direct [on behalf of fundraising group], they may be exempt from paying VAT- therefore saving more money to pay towards something else! If that were the case, the fundraising group could re-imburse the school of those used funds! [that's how we got round saving monies for our school purchases!].
 
Thanks for the VAT tip
 
I'll check with the wife and see what they use as her place, although I think they got all theirs out of the Tescos "IT For Schools" voucher catalog over the last couple of years.
I'd agree with going for something compact if it's going to be used on trips. The teacher has to carry enough stuff already, without adding half a kilogram of camera into the equation.
 
My wife is a primary school teacher and she uses my Canon Ixus 75.
She loves that it is easy to use and even the kids use it (although I am not too happy about that because everytime it goes in it comes back with more and more marks and scratches on it).

It has a f2.8 lens on it so its quite good in low light. The built in flash is good enough for what they need and she does slideshows and powerpoint presentations on a projector all the time and they look fine to me.

So would recommend something like this. A bridge is a definite no no, she has tried to use my DSLR's once or twice in the past to take pics round the house of say me and the baby and she cant get her head round having to half press to focus then full press to shoot. The simpler the better really, they have enough over things to concentrate on during the day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top