Question Photo/Camera people!

[Tilda]

Howdy all,

Off on holiday shortly and thinking of upgrading my aging 3mp brick of a camera and have been looking at something like this:

Panasonic Lumix TZ6 Digital Camera - Black 2.7 inch: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

I dont want a DSLR but I'd like photos I do take to look good. Any comments?
I've been reading the reviews and they seem pretty positive other than apparently batteries are hard to come by - apparently panasonic have enabled something that checks for an ID chip in a battery so that you can only use official batteries, which are hard to get.

Any other cameras I should be considering? Am looking on ebay and there are a couple of these going for around £100-£120 so hopefully I can grab one from there rather than the full £200 wack amazon want.

 

[old.Tohtori]

2.7 inch? So THAT's why you like it

I could give you my opinion, but this forum has more advanced camerafreaks around so i'll let them say a more informative answer.

 

[Tom]

A better camera won't automatically enable you to take better photographs, it'll just offer more flexibility in what you can do. Mind you, 3mp is pretty poor.

Its the person behind the camera that makes the difference. No offence (I don't recall any of your pictures) but you might be better spending that money on an introductory book to the art of photography.

 

[Tilda]

Thanks Tom, I'm not a bad photographer and have a number of books on technique! I've progressed to a point where I'm not sure I can get much more out of my current camera!

 

[Tom]

I'd suggest then heading over to dpreview and browsing there. Its an excellent site.

 

[old.user4556]

Tom makes a very valid point regarding the person and not the camera.

What sort of things are you looking for out of your new point-n-shoot?

I'm thinking of adding a compact, discreet point-n-shoot to my equipment bag for party shots / night outs / holiday / location scouting where it's not practical to take a DSLR. I've been looking at the Canon D10 because of it's water, shock and cold resistance along with image stabilisation. I know it's double the price than you want to pay, but I thought i'd suggest it.

There is a roundup on dpreview (again, as Tom pointed out - good site), here is the conclusions page for a waterproof review roundup.

I could be swayed by the Pentax Optio W60 which gets the runner up prize; it's cheaper (~£175), more compact and it would match the rest of my mostly Pentax gear.

Edit: I might add that the reason I'm looking at these for a PnS camera is that i've heard of countless casualties of cameras getting dropped, stood on or kicked, beer spilled on them, sat on etc. - i'd want something robust.

 

[Tom]

G if you have a bit of spare cash take a look at the Olympus Pen.

 

[Tilda]

G yep, some decent quality point and shoot, but then with the ability too for me to set my own settings to practice pictures too.
I tried a TZ6 in Jessops yesterday and it was really quite nice to use, the Intellegent Auto is good for an "auto" mode, but then you can change settings to suit on the other modes. The zoom is also incredible.

Any other cameras in a similar price range (£150-210) that I should consider?