[Gllug] OT: Digital camera recommendations

[Russell Howe]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2006 at 08:40:46PM +0100, will wrote:
> The features I need are things like:
> 
> Set the white balance manually
> Set ISO speed manually
> Minimum 4 MP
> Macro mode
> Continuous shoot
> Descent battery life
> Preferably Linux compatible (no windows machine at home)
> 
> Any recommendations/success?  The Canon EOS 350D[1] is the sort of thing 
> I was looking at, although I probably won't be able to spend that much 
> money ;)  Max budget is probably £400

I like the Powershot S70, but it's old now and probably not worth the
£250 price tag it still commands.

The S80 is better in all respects, save for the fact that it takes SD
media and doesn't have raw support. It's £500 at Jessops, which probably
means amazon has it for £350 or less.

DSLRs are now affordable, and whilst I don't know much about the various
models, have a look at http://www.dpreview.com/ - their reviews are
excellent. Certainly their review of the S80 seemed to have decent
conclusions:

DIGIC 2, EOS-style control wheel, larger LCD (compared to the S70),
increased resolution, smaller dimensions, USB2 all good.

Lack of RAW support, SD card support instead of CF (well, it is
smaller...), still lens problems and the price tag, bad.

For DSLRs, around the £400-600 price point, you have quite a few to
choose from. If you can afford to drop that much cash for the body and a
roughly equivalent sum for a decent lens, then I'd imagine you would be
very happy for quite some time to come.

The S70 I like, despite its size, USB speed, small LCD, DIGIC 1, weight
and lens. Pretty much every fault in an image has been mine, rather than
the camera's, and that has to be a good sign.

That said, the ixuses can produce some nice images, and they're very
very small.

-- 
Russell Howe       | Why be just another cog in the machine,
rhowe at siksai.co.uk | when you can be the spanner in the works?
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