Also - just check that your phone camera isn't better than you think it is. All of these were taken using my phone on our summer holiday (Google Pixel 7 XL) and often from stupidly far away (particularly the proboscis monkey and the orangutan nest building). The waterlily was from about 6 feet away. The pygmy elephants were from about 40 feet away and in strong sunlight.
Camera advice please.
- Thread starter Kingfisher101
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Kingfisher101
Veteran
What nice photos, where was this?
My phone is no good, its just a basic Nokia with no camera. I never got into the smart phone thing and if it wasnt for the fact that I need it for the odd text or for registering things then I wouldn't bother at all.
We re-did our honeymoon in Malaysia (this time with two teenaged girls to help kill the romance angle!) for our twentieth wedding anniversary. So apart from the water lily in my back garden, they are some of the sights we saw in the Borneo rainforest. We did get incredibly lucky managing to see a wild orangutan nest building, the pygmy elephants crossing the river, a proboscis monkey (alpha) also crossing the river via the medium of a belly flop and a 3m long crocodile. It's rare to see the elephants and even rarer to see a crocodile. I thoroughly recommend Malaysia as a holiday destination, especially if you like to mix up your holidays (we did beach, safari, capital, spa island back to the capital then home).
I was amazed by how good the photos were from the phone. They weren't a lot worse than the ones my wife took on a DSLR. The main advantage of the DSLR was pure range of zoom, although the phone zoom was impressive. The orangutan was barely visible to the naked eye - it was about 50 feet up and we were about 20 feet or so from the edge of the river.
Time Waster
Veteran
Pixwels have been highly rated phones for their cameras since about the P3. My Dad is a keen amateur photographer and a member of the local club. He often goes out on a photo shoot with his Pixel, a 4 I think, instead of his high end Nikon DSLR which is also a good if expensive camera. However if you do not need or have a smartphone then such a recommendation is not relevant.
I think either travel compacts (big zoom range and fast / low F number wide angle lens with good engine behind it) or possibly the rather old fashioned bridge camera. Another option is the mirrorless camera. ALso called 3/4 due to the size of the sensor bing 3/4" vs the DSLR 1" or higher. There are other mirrorless formats with close but slightly different sized sensors. They will ber slightly better imaging than even the highly rated Panasonic Lux travel zoom ranges (TZ???).
AIUI sensor size and engine behind the camera make for a better one. The former allows more light on it (similar to having a low F number fast lens but better) and the latter copes with image noise better. P Lumix has a good engine I believe.
BTW I am a long time out of photography but every so often I convince myself I want to get back into it then I baulk at the price of something decent and forget about it for a few more years. I think a good photography shop with a truly honest and good salesman/woman is a good place for decent ideas of what to get.
I think either travel compacts (big zoom range and fast / low F number wide angle lens with good engine behind it) or possibly the rather old fashioned bridge camera. Another option is the mirrorless camera. ALso called 3/4 due to the size of the sensor bing 3/4" vs the DSLR 1" or higher. There are other mirrorless formats with close but slightly different sized sensors. They will ber slightly better imaging than even the highly rated Panasonic Lux travel zoom ranges (TZ???).
AIUI sensor size and engine behind the camera make for a better one. The former allows more light on it (similar to having a low F number fast lens but better) and the latter copes with image noise better. P Lumix has a good engine I believe.
BTW I am a long time out of photography but every so often I convince myself I want to get back into it then I baulk at the price of something decent and forget about it for a few more years. I think a good photography shop with a truly honest and good salesman/woman is a good place for decent ideas of what to get.
Kingfisher101
Veteran
Thank you for your comment its unbelievable really how expensive they are. I did know roughly that it could run into a lot of money. But I thought I would be able to get what I wanted new for say a few hundred. There must be a lot of people round who just pay thousands for cameras and equipment without blinking. But I need to think about things and I need to feel confident that its right for me and that I can actually use it. Some of them are really hard going to use.
bonzobanana
Guru
You really don't need to spend a lot, its a bit like cycling itself you can spend as little or as much as you want. I find many cheap cameras sufficient quality. CEX do secondhand cameras with a 2 year warranty starting from about £12 or something like that and many are very good cameras with lots of great features. Actually I've just checked and prices have doubled and sometimes trebled compared to what I paid a couple years ago on CEX and compact models seem to have very low stock levels. Seems a good time to sell some of my cameras actually. Maybe ebay or facebook marketplace would be better. It was only back in February I got a couple of Fuji bridge cameras for just over £5 delivered and while one was missing its charger both worked perfectly and give fantastic results. Yes at high zoom in less than perfect light there is grain but in most situations give fantastic pictures. They were a gamble though as sold as untested and sold in the spares and repair section but absolutely brilliant cameras. One takes AA batteries and one has a lithium ion battery pack. One is 24x optical zoom and the other 18x. I use digital zoom sparingly but will on occasion that can deliver amazing results with a very light amount of digital zoom, perhaps doubling or tripling the optical zoom. I don't do the ridiculous 400x zoom some of these cameras are capable of which utterly destroys quality. I think one camera is 16MP and the other 14MP. So 5MP is still plenty for a 1080p image which I think from memory requires maybe 3MP or maybe 4-5MP for 16:9. Both cameras are capable of 4K 16:9 images as both are above 12MP. I have a Redmi phone with a 108MP sensor and with higher rated images than many iphones but still much prefer a physical camera although the Redmi phone is brilliant for 4k video with stabilisation.
They were designed to sell in maybe 2012 at £200-300 when that was worth about £350-400 now and as I say often less than £40 if you are lucky. Yes the tech is more dated but lenses were great and you have the option for CCD models which maybe are a bit crap for video but do some lovely images without the rolling shutter effect. Often CCD sensor cameras tried to emulate the chrome film look which I personally like because at the time people wanted digital cameras with images that looked more like film cameras. I think nowadays cameras just focus on true images where as mobile phones focus on likeable images. However it should be stated the reason I like real cameras over mobile phones is more about accessible controls, rapid shooting and the much better optics.
This is an image from my Fuji Z900EXR, I'm in no way saying this is an amazing camera, it is a compact camera, tiny size, low weight but I still think results are good.
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Electric_Andy
Heavy Metal Fan
- Location
- Plymouth
I had a 3MP camera in Australia. In the outback, I was running out of room on the SD card so lowered the quality down to I think 144P. They were grainy photos but my mum still has one of me on her mantle piece, shot at 144p and blown up to A4 size. It's still an acceptable image!
Kingfisher101
Veteran
Thank You again everyone, that amazing with those Bridge Cameras bonzo. I actually just sold a very old compact yesterday on Ebay. It had been in a box for over 10 years but still worked fine, I was thinking about either binning it or giving it to a charity shop. But I thought I'd give it a whirl on Ebay and it got £46.00. I think it was just over a hundred many moons ago.
I have been looking at my photo app on my laptop and it will convert a colour photo to B and W and they look decentish. Well its alright for me I think.
I have been looking at my photo app on my laptop and it will convert a colour photo to B and W and they look decentish. Well its alright for me I think.
bonzobanana
Guru
bonzobanana
Guru
We are so spoilt for cameras, people paying huge sums to just get marginal improvements in quality and performance its a bit like cycling. I saw an article in the past about African TV channels using more basic equipment to keep costs down and the person writing the article said the drop in quality was marginal to his eyes and un-noticeable for others. Many go for the best product rather than the product that fits the purpose at the minimum cost.
Jameshow
Veteran
What are they?🤔🤣
Time Waster
Veteran
I think the OP mentioned £500-700 budget in about the 5th post down I think. That is a decent budget. When I last looked you could buy £300-400 cameras from expensive Currys that are decent enough.
My Dad is really into photography and has the money so has bought into Nikon over a number of years. I would never suggest that is for everyone and not the OP. IMHO you could get a travel zoom which is a compact camera with a good, long zoom lens. Panasonic Lumix was the best at making these. Sony do some decent mirrorless cameras at reasonable-ish prices I believe, certainly in the £500-700 bracket or less for a starter kit from them.
Fuji always did some very big zoom range bridge cameras. As big as smallish DSLR cameras and bigger than mirrorless / 3/4 cameras. However the longer zooms are not easy to hold in the hand and eliminate camera shake without a tripod or other support with a timer / remote shutter release. Fuji also do some good mirrorless and compact cameras that are high end in their class. Or at least last time I looked into cameras.
Secondhand is good or bad. Some used retailers and dealers quote shutter release figures when they sell good cameras off. It is a bit like cars in that higher mileage or in cameras more shutter releases can mean the car or camera is not as good, not always though. If you get a cheap but decent used camera then it matters less as you just replace but in the meantime you have gained experience of what you want by understanding what that first camera lacked. If you follow.
IIRC there are very good camera shops, independents that got a bit big, who deal in new and used. I think there was a good one called Wessex cameras but I could be mistaken. Google it and check out their stock as they will give used quality and a few comments on them too. I think they also service and give a short warranty too but could be mistaken on which retailer did that.
My Dad is really into photography and has the money so has bought into Nikon over a number of years. I would never suggest that is for everyone and not the OP. IMHO you could get a travel zoom which is a compact camera with a good, long zoom lens. Panasonic Lumix was the best at making these. Sony do some decent mirrorless cameras at reasonable-ish prices I believe, certainly in the £500-700 bracket or less for a starter kit from them.
Fuji always did some very big zoom range bridge cameras. As big as smallish DSLR cameras and bigger than mirrorless / 3/4 cameras. However the longer zooms are not easy to hold in the hand and eliminate camera shake without a tripod or other support with a timer / remote shutter release. Fuji also do some good mirrorless and compact cameras that are high end in their class. Or at least last time I looked into cameras.
Secondhand is good or bad. Some used retailers and dealers quote shutter release figures when they sell good cameras off. It is a bit like cars in that higher mileage or in cameras more shutter releases can mean the car or camera is not as good, not always though. If you get a cheap but decent used camera then it matters less as you just replace but in the meantime you have gained experience of what you want by understanding what that first camera lacked. If you follow.
IIRC there are very good camera shops, independents that got a bit big, who deal in new and used. I think there was a good one called Wessex cameras but I could be mistaken. Google it and check out their stock as they will give used quality and a few comments on them too. I think they also service and give a short warranty too but could be mistaken on which retailer did that.
True although I did see a few articles suggesting that the market for low cost consumer compact cameras is more or less dead thanks to the smartphone.
