Buying a CHEAP digital Camera in Uk

Ok so i am fed up of not owning a camera...

And i know NOTHING about technology (well except ctrl alt del solves most of my comp worries)... All the previous dig camera threads went straight over my head.

I am looking to buy one for under £50 preferably around the £30 mark (is that realistic?)

I want one that, had a little screen so i can see the photo, i don't mind how much good quality the photo's are - I just want something to capture the moment. I'm not bothered about it being all fancy. Also something simple, user friendly... But i don't want something dead cheap utterly crap!!

Any advice? recommendations? whats the minimum pixels i should get? Is it measured in pixels?

Hey Pink

id suggest that the minimum you want is 2mega pixels........ after all if your going to capture a moment so to speak you want to be able to appreciate it with a bit of quality

As for where to get one, ive just had a quick look at a place ive bought a few......(for work) sites like firebox.com often has good promotional deals when new things come in.

I picked up a 2mega pixel camera with 64meg card which was also and mp3 player for 45.99 only 2months ago

But its not there anymore........ most they have are around the 60 mark but there all real nice cameras

Ill keep a lookout at work over next few days and if i see one worth having in your price range, ill be back



Just found this one - tiz only 1.2 mega pixel but they do still give a good pic, im just a fussy bugger i guess, but its only £40 take a look

flid using flid's computer that has been commendeered:

I'm loothed to recomend one, because I've seen a huge variation in quality of sub 60 quid cameras. I bought a 40 quid one 2 years ago (1.3 megapixel, no colour lcd) which takes ok(ish) photos under good light conditions, crap photos in low level (the flash is effective upto about 30cm) and because it doesn't have a screen, you can't see what you've taken, just delete the last one if you want. Internel memory should be avoided. I bought one with a slot, but the slot never worked. The battery compartment was poorly molded and on a couple of accoassions came loose and I lost all my photos. On another occassion due to it not having auto-power-off I lost all my photos of a great weekend away. Saying you don't care about quality is one thing, but as strugz said 2 megapixel is really the absolute minimum. Anything less is a childs toy.

I've recomended ones to people in the past on a strictly 'I haven't tested this' basis, and people generally seem ok with it, but you do need to do lots of research if that's your budget, because there is a lot of crap on the market now and you'll really need to hunt out the best. Beware of:

a) Digital zoom (as opposed to optical). It's meaningless. It just means the camera will zoom the same way you can on a computer in mspaint where it showa part of the picture and guesses pixels inbetween the ones it samples. It'll just give you crap photos. If you need to, do it on a computer afterwards, it'll probably look better.
b) Optical zoom. Optical zoom is a must if you're paying over 150 quid, but if you find somethine with it for your budget it's likely to be an uber cheap lens. Just as I'd never recomend a telescope under 500 quid boasting a high optical magnification the same is true of sub 150 quid cameras. It may sound snobby, but it's not. Too many people try to get into a hobby by buying equipment that's trying incorperate features far better than it is, and end up giving up when they see how crap the results are.
c) Interpolated pixels. Again, marketting . You should be looking at actual or effective pixels. It's basically digital zoom, it takes up more memory space (so it stores less photos) and it isn't the quality it claims. I've seen 2megapixel cameras sold as 6megapixel interpolated. It's a big trick used by cheap camera sellers. If you look at cheap hi-fi you'll see PMPO rated speakers, which boast stupidly high wattage output. The rest of the world uses RMS rating, but the PMPO value is roughly 4 times more, so a 25watt speaker can be sold as 100watt. It impresses people new to hi-fi, but no one else.
d) Cameras without flash. Assuming you live in the UK where it's not always sunny that is....

If you can, find something made by a good camera manufacturer. This may be hard, but if possible will give you much better peace of mind that if something goes wrong in 12 months you know who to return it to. Like many things in the electronics world there's very few manufacturers out there, but some of them sell their products to otehr companies, who bagde the products as theres. Such companies are very rarely based in the UK and the shipping costs of returning faulty goods to the manufacturer is more than the cost price for a one off. Companies like Trust (ironic I know), Packard Bell, Murphy Richards etc don't make any of their own stuff. Slightly larger companies make the finished product, but none of the gubbins inside. This can be a good thing, if you know what's inside before you buy. I bought a dell widescreen tft last month. I'd never buy from dell normally (and wouldn't blindly buy from them in the future), but I found it's exactly the same lcd used in apple cinema monitors, and made my a manufacturer i trust. I paid over 130 less than any apple cinema monitor i could find on sale over the period of a month, and it looks stunning . If you can't find one by a big camera manufacturer, make sure you get something that other people have bought and reviewed, and be warned that if you buy it online, it may not look like the thing you ordered

the probelm with cameras and certain other thgns like that is unfortunatetly you get what you pay for and if your aiming very low you could end up witha piece of junk, i know your money situ isnt great but if this thign is to last youa few years or so or a bit of wear and tear froms and at falmouth mud at fetivals or being hit with your socks i'd advise spending around 100 or just over

1 word EBAY

There are some really good cameras within your budget in this eBay shop.

Just steer clear of anything on eBay that has to be shipped from abroad (like Hong Kong) as customs might charge VAT and customs duty on it, and they charge on the price it would cost here, not how much you payed. ****ing UK tax. I got my camera while in Japan Came back and the same model was twice as much on sale.

Slot memory is best left in the camera. You only take it out to put a bigger memory card in, and do everything with the camera's cable. The cards are pretty delicate, so buying a memory card reader and swapping the cards around is a bad idea.

If you're not printing you don't need huge megapixels, 2Mp is more than enough for the web. You'll have to reduce everything to fit on most peoples screens, so you might not need a zoom, you just crop the image to what you want.

Luckily Mr.Chutney and i have struck a deal...

He's selling me his old Canon Powershot S10

Thank you for all your advice though was VERY much appreciated.

well i cant belive you didnt come to me

i mean im only living with you (soon) and you go to all these reproables to get advice

how could you

No worries. I should have mentioned what I said was more for people who aren't familiar with eBay. (Try doing online auctions in Japanese )

I might go for one of those sub £100 digital video cameras

Card readers are OK if you've got huge cards in an older USB 1 camera, or are semi-professional, as you can probably afford to buy new cards when they wear out.

Not just consumer electronics. Also 200kg of computer hardware

Cole is right, you can get good deals buying direct from the far east. I'm incharge of export/import at work and several of our suppliers are based in taiwan.

If hypothetically speaking you were buying things and asking for them to be marked a gift when they arn't then technically you'd be breaking the law, so probably not the best thing to advertise on the internet. The best way would be to have it accompanied with a commercial invoice for $1 US, saying that the goods are faulty and being returned to their origin.

The only way you can be guaranteed to not pay duty though is to call UK customs at heathrow before it enters the UK and have it marked as a controlled import. There is of course much paperwork....

Personally I wouldn't touch an ebay auction from outside the EU with a barge pole, but if you feel you can take the risk then go for it. Just be warned that if it turns up duff it'll most likely be upto you to return it at your cost. One of the factors you have to build into your saving when buying from overseas is if it's still worth it if you have to return upto 10% of the stuff. Check what the warranty is, not all countries have a mandatory 12 month warranty, and some companies won't honour them if you've broken the terms of the sale by buying through someone else (eg dell).

this is all hypothetical