Photography Compact cameras

[throdgrain]

What's a good compact camera then? Any advice? I need a slim one for putting in my jacket pocket when I ride to Spain in a month or so.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

That's a pretty broad question, and the bottom end of the compact market has collapsed as most people use phones now, the quality of these has improved loads.

If I was you I would look at the Sony RX100 mark 1,2 or 3 depending on your budget and what's available. Big sensors and quite good quality lenses make them a popular choice.

RB

 

[TdC]

indeed, as RB says, very broad indeed. if you want interchangable lenses you could potentially consider something like this :http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilm-x-e2

if you just did a lolwhut? in your head when I said removable lenses, you could consider something like this: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilm-x20

the X20 is getting on a bit, but is still an awesome point and shoot camera in its own right. a mate has one and takes awesome pics with it every day.

 

[throdgrain]

I can use my phone, a HTC One X +, which has a great camera, but when I transfer the photos to my pc, sometimes they look no so good. My old Canon a550 - which is OLD by the way - seems to take better photos, and frankly I'd settle for that, but it's too fat to fit in a jacket done up for riding. Them one's your showing are more than I want to spend Teeds, maybe my question should be "how can I improve the pics taken by my phone?" instead. Not sure.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Phones have come a long way, and for Facebook etc they are fine, but a dedicated camera is likely to take better photos especially when they are blown up larger on a PC screen. What sort of budget are you looking at?

 

[TdC]

yeah, thing there Throdbacon, is that your pics will look awesome on a screen such as your phone has, but possibly not on a big computer screen or in print. a phone camera chip is *tiny*, and while it's frankly amazing what it can do given what it is, it will *never* match up to a picture taken with a dedicated camera (which is basically why cameras still exist tbh).

I think you're quite right in saying that perhaps you should decide first where you want to take things with the pictures you're doing with the phone. if you're cool with putting them on the old facebook or having a laugh passing the phone about at the motorcycle hangout, then by all means keep your money in your pocket. think of it like you think about bikes mate: one of them big paris-dakar type cross-country stompers can cross deserts, but may not be the best thing for nipping about the city, and a perfect city bike may be shite for country road cruising, etc etc.

 

[throdgrain]

yeah, thing there Throdbacon, is that your pics will look awesome on a screen such as your phone has, but possibly not on a big computer screen or in print. a phone camera chip is *tiny*, and while it's frankly amazing what it can do given what it is, it will *never* match up to a picture taken with a dedicated camera (which is basically why cameras still exist tbh).

I think you're quite right in saying that perhaps you should decide first where you want to take things with the pictures you're doing with the phone. if you're cool with putting them on the old facebook or having a laugh passing the phone about at the motorcycle hangout, then by all means keep your money in your pocket. think of it like you think about bikes mate: one of them big paris-dakar type cross-country stompers can cross deserts, but may not be the best thing for nipping about the city, and a perfect city bike may be shite for country road cruising, etc etc.

My son (who worked for Vodaphone for ages) just said exactly the same thing about mobile phone cameras.

I reckon I might just get a fifty quid camera thing.

 

[TdC]

that may be just the thing mate. also, if it gets wet, or you drop it, or some fat fucker sits on it or something, you're likely to not be as pissed for 50 notes than you'd be for 500 ;-) just remember to stick the camera's memory card in your PC every now and then to copy over those pictures and you're golden I reckon

 

[Poag]

I bought one of these before a trip to Prague last year.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007JSZZSI/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Served me well on the hols, i'm no photo wiz so i lef tit all on automatic and it produced, by my standards good results. I've stopped carrying it recently as my Z1 compact produces pictures of equal quality, but with no zoom.

The wifi viewfinder is handy when taking a group photo, the sync to online storage sadly doesn't work.


I'd get this years version, but the 300F did well enough

A sample from the camera included below.

Spoiler

 

[Raven]

A mate has a Sony RX100 - loves it.

 

[old.user4556]

Sony RX100 - look no further. The Mk3 has subtle improvements (popup EVF is a bonus), but you could pickup a second hand Mk2 for a lot less cash.

 

[fettoken]

Any comparison to RX100 II and III?

 

[old.user4556]

Dpreview.com

They have a preview with a table comparing features side by side. They also have sample / controlled image samples.

 

[fettoken]

Thanks @Big G Seeing as the price goes up considerably from one model to the other.