Digital Camera

[T-Bag]

I'm looking for a decent quality digital camera ~10MP. Preferably <Ã,£100.
I'd prefer it to take AA batteries because I'll be away from civilization for about 10 days and would like the camera to take pics for the whole time. SD/Mini/Micro would be my storage of choice but if it has to be MemoryDuo etc I don't mind as I might be able to dig out/scrounge an old card or two from somewhere.

The crucial part is I want one with a built in lens, not the motorised sticking out sort so it can handel the cold properly. I've been looking around and the closest I could find was a Fuji tough camera for Ã,£200 (A little more than I'd like to spend).

Does anyone have any suggestions, and a link to a reputable site where they can be purchased?

[DarkAngel]

How about the Fujifilm FinePix S1500fd i believe it covers all that you wanted, my friend uses this camera and swears by it.

Although this is my current camera which i managed to pickup for just over Ã,£100

[GhostMjr]

I got a fujii similar to what da suggested back in 2007.

It was bought as i couldn't afford an slr but i wanted a bit more frills than a normal compact. So an interim whilst i learnt more about using a camera before spending a alot of money on a slr i wouldn't know how to use and by the time i did would be seriously out of date.

It had a fixed zoom and needs 4 AA batteries to run it.

My experience is that when i need to use the camera i have to charge my ni-mh batteries ni-cd won't cut it and have to imported from hong kong to save on silly high street prices. By the way buy a known brand like energizer as generic (unbranded batteries sometimes aren't recognised by the camera.

I can't say its too much of a hassle.

The lens is just like an slr so u can move it conventionally like an slr but it is fixed. The new lumix looks intriguing not sure on prices.

I was told anyway 6MP is enough for the average user 10MP is for professionals but this was 3 years ago so maybe you do need 10mp or its the standard.

I got it from jessops with 3 years free accident cover for the same price as that of from amazon so shop around and see if they can do you a deal for around the Ã,£100 mark.

Buy a case from ebay and ship in from hong kong. I did and got an official whether its lookalike or not doesn't bother me with fuji branding for Ã,£3 including postage instead of paying Ã,£30- Ã,£40 from jessops.

Get a decent sized in build memory and then again get more expandable memory from hong kong or refurbished from uk sellers.

Also i found when i got the camera throw away the cds and just use a usb to usb b to connect the camera or use a memory card reader as the fuji software anyway was a complete failure.

[A Twig]

I have used the various incarnations of Olympus Shockproof cameras, and found them superb. The latest base model incarnation is Olympus TOUGH-6010 which you'll find for Ã,£160-Ã,£180. 12MP, shock proof, water proof etc etc.
Doesn't run off AA, but you could get one of those AA powered camera recharge gadgets pretty cheap. The picture quality is fantastic, a huge range of settings both auto and manual, I absolutely love them.

You can find the previous top spec model model for a fraction of the cost, here for example:
http://www.plemix.com/camera-olympus-1030sw-camera

I would thoroughly recommend any of them though!

[Sn00ks]

I bought a Fuji Finepix F30 years ago. It has been really good, only minus point is the optical zoom is only 3x. The battery is a rechargeable one but I have taken it on a four week tour of Oz and not had to charge it once, took over 380 photos, some with flash. The battery seems to last for ever on a  full charge.
It has also survived numerous snowboarding trips, mountain bike rides and general abuse.

[OldBloke]

Get a Panasonic - best you can afford.

[T-Bag]

I noticed those "Tough" cameras and they seem to be leading the race at the moment. It's going to be going up Mt. Kilimanjaro with me (hence the cold proof). I don't want anything too SLR like due to wanting it close to hand (and limited storage space). The tough cameras only down side seems the fixed battery (so maybe needing some way of charging in the cold would be the biggest off putting factor - or buying a second battery inflating the price further).

For any other use I've been strongly considering getting a Lumix of some sort - for this use though the lens motorised lens and LiIon pack both go against it.

A Mju's selling points for me are -10C operating temps and can take 100kg which means it can be flung about in my pack. I'm still looking though - there might still be a perfect camera - like this one but cheaper and AA batteries - or cheaper with cheap spare batteries etc.

[T-Bag]

I'm most tempted by this at the moment:

Link

Anyone had a play with one?

[smilodon]

The non motorised lens is going to maybe be an issue. It's basically the only effective way to zoom the image. Without it you'll be stuck at a fixed focal length. Some cameras zoom within the body of the camera so there is no stcky out bit. However they are generally limited to x3 optical zooms. Any more will need a lens that sticks out from the camera when in use. Not what you want.

Don't be fooled by digital zooms though. While they don't move the lenses in and out they don't actually zoom either. What they effectively do is enlarge the existing image and crop the edges. This gives the effect of a zoom motion but is also cropping away pixels. As the digital zoom increases the image degrades. The result is a very poor resolution image. Your images will very quickly start to break up and pixelate. So the Fuji you linked to looks fine for a x3 zoom but forget the x5.7 digital zoom. Unless you spot a Yeti or a UFO it's useless IMHO.

Also don't get hung up about maximum pixels. While the above problem with a digital zooms does effect pixels anything around a 6mp camera will give you perfectly acceptable A4 pictures i.e. no enlargement required. A 10-12mp will give an A3 size image without enlargement.

6mp is 3072 pixels by 2048 pixels. If you print at 200dpi which should be fine for a good quality print you'll get an image about 10" by 15" which is a bit bigger than A4.

Most camera manufacturers and sadly many camera shops will try to suggest that more pixels means better images. This is rubbish. Better optics and better in camera processing make for technically better pictures. Pixels just just limits the dimensions of the image.

Also one final tip if you're travelling. I always shoot on 4 gig cards and swap them out every day. That way I spread my shots over several cards. So maybe take several smaller memory cards rather than say one big 16 gig. Eggs in one basket comes to mind if you store everything on one single card. If a card fails or gets lost it's better to loose one small memory card out of say four than to loose everything you shot on one big card.

[T-Bag]

Also one final tip if you're travelling. I always shoot on 4 gig cards and swap them out every day. That way I spread my shots over several cards. So maybe take several smaller memory cards rather than say one big 16 gig. Eggs in one basket comes to mind if you store everything on one single card. If a card fails or gets lost it's better to loose one small memory card out of say four than to loose everything you shot on one big card.

I'm aware of the more megapixels not meaning a better image. I had a Kodak 10x optical zoom but only 4mp images (was shaped like a miniature SLR, but no interchangable lenses etc but the one it had was large and high quality) It has been consistently better than other cameras I've tried in the 6-8mp range with small lenses and inferior optical zoom even without the zoom being used as the optics were good. Nowhere I look seems to still sell a decent 6mp camera anymore although 99%+ of the photography I'll do won't need to be higher quality and will wind up being shrunk when it goes up on facebook anyway.

As for the cards that's a good point, I've been focused on batteries and assuming I'd get a large card to fit everything on, but if it corrupts or is lost (with or without the camera) I'd be gutted. I've a collection of 2GB Micro SD cards in my draw that I might take instead. Even at 10MP I don't think I'll take 2GB of pics a day (in RAW format that's over a hundred).

I checked out the one I linked to in store today and it seems to do the trick, not rushing anything as january sales around the corner might bring different ones into my price range but I wasn't put off.

[A Twig]

I haven't used the Hawaii Fuji you linked to, but in my experience the Fuji's that I have used haven't been great. Average picture quality, irritating interfaces and a tendency to break have been the three key things I remember from using them! However, the last Fuji I used/had was around a year ago.

On the plus side it does seem that they've stopped using their own brand/style memory cards which were irritating as hell. Oh and don't use their supplied FinPix Viewer - a turd of a bit of software if I ever saw one...

For the price difference IMHO I'd go for the Olympus...

[T-Bag]

I found this:
Link

It's not waterproof etc but it has an internal lens with a modest zoom. Anyone have experience with Samsung Cameras? (I'm well out the loop with digital cameras)