Last Christmas I decided to treat myself to a new digital camera. I didn't want to spend a lot but wanted a reasonable camera.

Earlier on last year I bought a Fuji F610 for my son from the Fujifilm refurbished website and it has given him stirling service. I looked on there and decided on an F700. Apparently it had won more awards than any other Fuji camera and the price wasn't bad either with 6 months guarantee thrown in.

I had only used it about 3 or 4 times when it began playing up. So I contacted Fuji in June (just after the guarantee expired ) Send it in they said. So I posted it to them and to cut a long story short I rang them today to find out what the hell was happening. £99.90 to you sir, the main board has gone!

I argued but they weren't interested. I am loath to add another 100 quid to what is now an obsolete camera and could very well pack up again.

I think I'll get it back and sell it for spares.

So here we are again just before Christmas and I'm looking for a new camera again!

Anyone got any recomendations? I'd like to spend about £150

It depends on ur needs of course. Well, I'm on my second Olympus c 4000 (1st one stollen after 2 years of ownership), and soon will be buying one for my father. Although it's an old model, it makes great fotos -it seems it's overall very well balanced, from lenses to compressing software- and it has the set up flexibility of a semi-SLR. You can buy a brand new 500-pound digital where the end result -the photo- is worse. If you are a professional photografer you will need more; if u are anybody else, not. Weakness: forget it if u like recording videos. Manual-set shutter speed: 16 seconds! So, if u want to capture the stary sky on a summer night...pick up a used one from ebay for 60 quid (price I paid for my second one). Spend 50 in memory...and off-you-go! It's a classic, like the XM, if u know what I mean.

regards
George

I bought an early 4mpx camera a few years ago from Aldi. Had never heard of it, badged 'Traveller' was recommended as a good buy on a photographic forum, cost £200.00. On investigation I found it was actually made by a famous german manufacturer. Anyway it's been a brilliant camera and will produce excellent A4 prints even in 'basic' mode which gives it a storage of about 120 pics. But, it has just started playing up, it appears to 'crash' and behaves like my computer does sometimes, goes slow and wont do what you tell it to, so unless someone has any suggestions I will have to do what George suggests and look for one on ebay.

I bought a camcorder about 10 years or more ago, which was also brilliant in its time, but within about 6 or 7 years had cost me as much as I paid for it in repairs. Dried up electrolytic capacitors was the problem and although I am a TV engineer I took one look inside and out it back together, how they work on them I dont know. If it had valves in it I might have had a go!.

Peter.N.

Short and to the point --- new Casio Elixim, Elixir --- whatever. -- Buy, take away, take two or three photos --- drop heavy metal handle on screen. Utter phrase such as 'golly, I'm a bit miffed', or similar. End of digital camera experience !

Mike.

Ha! Well I'm not the only lucky soul with cameras then

I've been looking on ebay all day today.

I have a shortlist of 7 cameras: Olympus Mju500; SP-350; SP-320; C-5050. Minolta Z20. Pentax Optio m20 and Panasonic Dmc-TZ1.

All reasonably priced. The main feature I'm looking for is a short as poss time lag between shots. The Fuji was brilliant (when it worked ) around half a second between shots in normal mode. None of those above seem quite that fast and much as I like them I don't want to risk another Fuji. I had a lovely little Nikon once, I think it was a Coolpix 3200 or something. You could go and make a cuppa while waiting to take the next shot! I've missed some great shots then rushed and ended up with a blur!

I'll have another look tomorrow and try and narrow the list some more.

Read some reviews before u choose, e.g. "Steve's Digicams" (google it) or so many others out there...

regards
George

Well I decided to go for the Olympus SP350.

It arrived today but I haven't had much time to play yet. Just got back from "Disney on Ice" (aah) .

I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Well I've used it a few times and its quite nice. I've Googled it and can't find any complaints on the www. I'm still learning at the moment but the one thing I've noticed is if I make any changes to the settings i.e. picture quality. When I switch off and switch back on it resets itself back to default settings. Other than that fine.

It's a tad slower than the Fuji when taking continuous shots in normal mode and a bit slower still if using flash. But these are minor gripes and I'm sure I'll get used to them or find a way around them. All the write ups are fairly positive.

I got the F700 back and can't believe they didn't want the postage off me! They seemed keen on screwing me on every other occasion!

Amazingly it looks exactly the same with the lens still stuck out. I would have thought they would have stripped it to find the prob. I can only think they use diagnostic software through the usb socket or something. Or else there's some geek checking the new arrivals: "Oh yeah, that's a classic mate, boards fritzed........Next!"

Even though I'm mighty pissed off with their attitude (I thought the Japs were supposed to be honourable? ) I have to say that when the F700 was working it was an absolute peach of a camera. Probably the best I've ever used, so when it failed I was really miffed.

Hi Demag,

To solve the resetting problem go into the menu system and under setup look for a setting "all reset" and switch it off. It will then retain your settings when you turn it off and on again.

Cheers

noz

Hi Noz or any other digi camera experts.

I have a rather obscure camera, it was a fairly early 4mp which came highly recommended at the time and has done stirling service, until recently that is. It is now very slow to load up from switch on, very much like my computer, somtimes you have to tell it two or three times to do something before it does, a bit frustrating if you are trying to catch something! I did some research on the net and found that it was actually made by Leica.

As it doesn't have a keyboard or mouse I am at a loss to know what to do with it, other than throw it away, but I would rather not do that. Any polite suggestions?

Peter.N.

I've just found out why I couldn't save any settings. I was altering the settings in "Auto" mode and when I switched off and on again everything had defaulted to original settings. The reason is because I was in "Auto" mode! That's exactly what it is, Auto! Now when I changed into "P" mode (programmable) there were all my saved settings waiting for me! Doh!

Thrown there for a while. It's hard for us slow people you know!

Peter,

Just a thought, do you have loads of photos stored on your camera? If so, it might be worth while deleting them or fitting a new SD card.

Alternatively, why not take it back to Aldi, I've always found them very helpful.

Derek

Hi

Check out my shots of my Toy, not the first XM, but the 24v in the topic below, "Photos.... Test"

I used my PHONE, with a 3mp camera!

I'm stunned! Its perfect for me

I'm not a digi camera person, but found that my phone camera perfectly adiquet

Regards
citroenxm

Hi Derek

I dont have many pictures on it, in fact I dont use it all that often, special events and holidays mostly. I usually load them on to the computer as soon as I come home. Its acting like a computer with to little RAM or a virus.

It had a three year guarantee from Aldi when I bought it, but it has expired now - typical! So I dont think they would be very interested.

citroenxm

I have difficulty using a mobile phone, I think one with a camera would be completely beyond me!

Peter.N.

Aww Peter,,

I'm sure you'd manage...

I'm not superb either, but get by..

Much better with me spanners and hammers!!

Regards
citroenxm