Compact camera

friesianfan69

friesianfan69

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Donna
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Im after a decent compact camera for out and about.
What is best around the £200-£300 mark?
There's a Samsung mv900f on offer at the moment.
Any one know much on this or if its crap?
Thankyou
 
Hi, Maybe a little over budget but you'll not go wrong with a Fuji X20, or the lower priced earlier Fuji X10 is an excellent camera. Both have the same lens which is extremely good.

If you don't need a viewfinder then perhaps a Fuji XF1, these have the same sensor as the X10 but a different lens and a few other bits. My wife has one of these and I have made A3+ prints of very good quality from shots she has taken with it. Hope this helps.
 
You could get a Lumix GF3 with a 14mm for about £275. Not quite compact but certainly jacket pocketable. The Lumix LX5 or LX7 might be worth looking at. Very pleased with my LX5 - focuses in an instant and the image quality still takes me by surprise at times.
 
Depends what you mean by compact. :shrug: 'Compact' can cover from a Canon Ixus 125 (small) up to the Canon GX1. (quite large) And that's just the extremes of the Canon compact range. ;)

And then what other features you want, large zoom, RAW, manual controls, fixed lens, optical viewfinder or not?

A few years ago it was camera size manual control and RAW that led to my decision on which compact. I wanted it to fit in my pocket, and at the time the Canon S95 was the camera that ticked all my boxes. Zoom range wasn't that big an issue as it was replacing a 3-4x zoom, and so that is what I was used to. The only thing it was lacking was 1080p video. I don't do video that often, but it would be nice for it to be 1080. The tech just wasn't there at that time, and it wasn't that big a deal for the times I would use it.

If money was no option now for the same features I wanted, it would be the Sony RX100, as it is a similar sized camera, but better in almost every way. :) It is basically a S95 made better, as Sony seemed to follow the Canon blueprint for that camera.

If zoom was the most important feature, coupled with versatility, then the Panasonic TZ cameras would be where I was looking. Great quality compacts from the cameras I've seen. :thumbs:

And people are putting CSC cameras with interchangeable lenses, which some consider as compact. And they are 'more compact', when compared to a DSLR, but start putting larger lenses on, and then if you have more than one lens, and it is suddenly not as 'compact' as it first appears. ;)

There is so much choice though. :eek: :thinking: You need to narrow down what are the most important features in a compact to you. :shrug:
 
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For around £200-300 for a New compact camera i suppose you would be looking at,

Panasonic TZ-40

Canon SX280HS

Sony WX300

Samsung Galaxy Camera

Fuji Finpix F900

Nikon S9500

All with different features, like touchscreen and GPS, Canon and Samsung have a promotion on at the moment but dont let that sway you unless you think its the right camera for you, i would have a look at Amazon and read some reviews from independent websites as well to see what appeals to you, Good Luck
 
I'm looking out for a compact myself, but an advanced one. You need to be a little more specific. If I was limited to £300 I'd look at the Lumix Lx7 , a little over your budget but not by much.
 
Thank you for all your thoughts and comments, ill google them and have a read up, I just want a nice easy to carry camera that will take descents shots of the kids, horses etc when I've not got my big camera,
 
I use an X10 and love the thing, fits in my jacket pocket and produces good quality images.
 
friesianfan69 said:
I just want a nice easy to carry camera that will take descents shots of the kids, horses etc when I've not got my big camera,
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I hope the kids and horses will be still most of the time, because most compacts will struggle with things which are moving. :thinking:
 
DP review is a great site to compare camera's to.

http://www.dpreview.com/

:)

I have the GX1 but have to get rid because of finances. I've not used it to its full potential, certainly doesn't compare to a 7d, it's always more noticable when you are used to propper kit :)
 
thanks guys, hmmm not sure what to do then.
Are they all blurry? with moving shots?
 
Unless you buy one with manual controls, the chances of blurring are greater. These smaller cameras may not have the best auto-set ups, the cameras often decide you want a slow shutter speed, even when you want the opposite. Cheaper ones don't offer manual control, some don't even allow you to change the ISO manually.

For £300 though, I'd expect manual control of some kind. You just need to learn how to get the best out of it.
 
It will be the focusing speed that lets the compact down for subjects that are moving all over the place. Saying that, as long as you get focus and the subject is not really close the massive depth of field from a small sensored compact is on your side so any movement won't take the subject much out of the focused area. Just need a high enough shutter speed to avoid blur.
 
I would think it's a mix of both really. I have never had a compact that reacted how I wished in any of it's auto modes. They tend to make them veer towards over exposing without keeping the shutter speeds in line.

Th AF is usually terrible too, so even with that extra DOF, say you're shooting a kid jumping in the air, you've still a good chance of blurring because between the bad AF and all over the place shutter ...

If your budget is £300, you should be fine, there are some great little manual control compacts out there. There's also the bridge cams.
 
ernesto said:
It will be the focusing speed that lets the compact down for subjects that are moving all over the place. Saying that, as long as you get focus and the subject is not really close the massive depth of field from a small sensored compact is on your side so any movement won't take the subject much out of the focused area. Just need a high enough shutter speed to avoid blur.
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All very true. Over the past few weeks I thought I would try & get some bird shots as there are usually a number of them flying around where we have our morning coffee. So tried with my higher end advanced compact (Nikon P7700) but failed so far. Not the shutter speed as I had it on shutter priority but couldn't get the hang of getting it to focus fast enough. Even tried high speed burst but no good so back to the drawing board for me :clap:
 
To be fair, birds in flight are hard to capture well even with high end gear.
 
Cagey75 said:
To be fair, birds in flight are hard to capture well even with high end gear.
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Well I've not much better to do (:lol:) so it's been one of my experiments but I also find trying to frame with just an LCD screen is far harder than with a VF.
 
It is possible! :D just not easy. I remember trying same when I used bridge cameras. The evf on the old ones I had were poor, it was easier use the LCD. Birds are tough cookies to track without full on control over focusing though.
 
Cagey75 said:
It is possible! :D just not easy. I remember trying same when I used bridge cameras. The evf on the old ones I had were poor, it was easier use the LCD. Birds are tough cookies to track without full on control over focusing though.
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Needs a bit of creative thinking --- shoot (gun not camera) the b*ggers --- then I'll be able to focus --- only joking. Before I get report to the RSPCB :eek:
 
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My compact has a zone focus option that removes the need for auto focusing. Great for street shots and the like but taking pictures of birds with a 28 eqv lens would leave me pointing out where the brids are in the shot using a pin!
 
friesianfan69 said:
thanks guys, hmmm not sure what to do then.
Are they all blurry? with moving shots?
Click to expand...

The AF with compacts is not the best thing with moving subjects. :shrug: Yes, small sensor cameras have larger depth of field, and so in theory, focusing doesn't have to be as accurate, but it's hard to get anywhere near to focusing as the camera slowly cycles though the whole AF range to try and achieve a lock. It's the way most contrast detection AF (used in compacts) works. Yes, they are getting better, but I don't think that they are there yet for kids and horses, unless someone knows better. :shrug:

So it's a toss up between size, (large or small) features and performance with any camera, and the compact/bridge cameras are biased towards small size and features. :shrug: If one camera had/could do everything, there would only be two cameras on sale.

Why two? Because there would at least have to be a Canon or Nikon version for some people. ;) :lol:
 
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