Calling all bargain experts! Help me with a Camera Bargain please!

Doey21 on 02/01/2011 - 13:16
Last edited 02/01/2011 - 13:59 by 1 other user

Hey guys! Some of you guys might recognise me as the insider who brought davo1111 undone with his shady geronimo dealings (or not…). Anyways I have come crawling back to ask for help :)

My mum is looking for a camera (either the Canon Powershot S90/S95/G12) or anythign else of recommendation.
I've been checking up the prices on staticice but i'm not sure how bargain worthy they are! Also, the site techrific comes up and they have pretty good prices. However they're not actually situated in Australia (no landline phonenumber), So i wonder what the implications for their products are? Are they grey imports? Because they offer 1 year warrantee, so would that be covered by Canon or Techrific?

Any ideas in general would be good so thanks OBers and Have a happy new year!

MOD (davo) moved you to the correct section

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  Davo1111 on 02/01/2011 - 15:02

  So you're looking for a "point and shoot" camera, how many megapixels do you require?

  I got a fujifilm point and shoot at myer for $75 (12mp) which i felt was a steal, won't take long before another one appears.

  Also, becareful of the memory cards they take, some of the cheaper ones may have aftermarket memory cards which will be very expensive. SD card would be the standard at the moment.

  Give it 2 weeks, imo you'll see a couple of deals on ozb

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  esq on 02/01/2011 - 21:51

  Very high-end P&S you're after there old chap, hope your mum appreciates the extra hundreds spent on it. The low-light shooting on the S95 is amazing, and according to DigitalRev the S95 vs G12 picture quality are basically the same. Just different ergonomics.

  Last week, I bought the $459 S95 from Umart (found it using staticice… definitely not the cheapest on there) and am pretty happy with it. It's what I use for parties, clubbing, so on. Who brings an SLR or G series on a night out on the town?

  I could have gotten the S95 for around $380-390 overseas and of course that means a Chinese instruction manual, Chinese/HK warranty, and Chinese/HK plug. Perhaps it is even cheaper in America. Once you factor in cost of shipping and ease of using warranty, an extra $70 to pick it up from Umart seemed a reasonable price.

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    ESEMCE on 04/01/2011 - 08:38

    Go for the highest sensitivity unit your money can buy or that is offered on the market (high sensitivity = best low light performance). The better the sensitivity, the faster you can shoot (shutter speed) in low light, and the fewer blurred photos you'll have.
    You'll also be able to get more natural colours that aren't washed out by flash. Shots that look like they actually appeared at the time to your eye.

    SD card is the standard, stick to it, or forever be beholden to changing card specifications!

    I like AA batteries on my cameras, so in that emergency situation where you've forgotten to charge the proprietary battery, you can just pop in AA's from the local servo.

    On the cheap end, my GF has a cheap Fuji AV100 ($94 from BigW). It has 720p video and takes impressive shots on auto. The only "negative" is the puny 3x zoom, but for the money, it takes amazing photos and nice video. Picture quality blows my 3 year old, $350, Canon A720 out of the water!

    Oh and don't buy based on megapixels… Any camera (except a webcam) these days will have significantly more than enough pixels in the sensor to take very nice, printable photos. In fact, in compact cameras these days, the lower the pixel density, the higher the quality of the shots (more often than not).

    Finally: The "bendy" Tripods (Gorillapod) are incredibly handy, especially when combined with a remote (so you don't have to set up a timer shot). They can position a camera just about anywhere! Get the larger size, the small size just can't support the weight of anything but the tiniest super-compacts.

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  Doey21 on 03/01/2011 - 21:37

  Yeah is it http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/FujiFilm/fujifilm_jv15… that you were talking about davo?

  How do you find the camera davo? Do you think the other features that make the S95 so much more expensive worthwhile for a beginner ESQ? thanks guys!

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    esq on 03/01/2011 - 22:38

    To be honest I don't think it's worth the the extra $250-350 if your mum just wants to point the camera and shoot on auto. The many under $200 cameras out there definitely meet the requirements of beginner P&Sers. Generally, the ~$100 cameras are similar photo quality to ~$200 in good light conditions but fall short in low-light conditions. Also, it's my experience that the cheaper the camera is, the longer the "boot up" time and also time spent waiting for the camera between shots. The flash also tends to suck pretty bad compared to the bigger boys, this may have to do with size as well as build quality.

    I got this for my mum for her bday in November. http://www.ryda.com.au/Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-FH1-Digital-Camer…

    Very decent reviews on this bad boy, particularly from the CHOICE camera report (the one that needs a paid subscription).

    Also got her an SDHC from mymemory.co.uk, they are piss cheap. MSY is a decent local choice.

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  Davo1111 on 03/01/2011 - 22:08

  hey Doey, mine is a Fujifulm j20 AFAIK. I just went to myer, saw the one day special, and grabbed it basically because it had the right megapixels/SD card & included charger. It was basically just luck. Its a basic camera, it probably won't have all the bells and whistles. Generally, if you are not looking for a specific model, you'll probably get a better price, discontinued lines etc

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  Doey21 on 03/01/2011 - 23:22

  Thanks for your help guys! Can you really get a "bad model"? I guess for a camera, $200 and below would be pretty cheap considering it lasts for a while! The lumix seems to be of pretty good value! I think i'll wait another two weeks to see if any bargains come about but otherwise I'll be getting the Lumix…Is there anything that you could say badly about the Lumix esq?

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  annakira on 04/01/2011 - 10:02

  Doey21, Bing Lee has a Panasonic F3 model on special for $99 atm. It is a very simple model. I am looking to get one myself, as I need to upgrade my old compact camera (panasonic brand also). I only need to upgrade the video recording, F3 has standard HD movie recording.