Endless Paradigm

Well Steve (my camera) died. Sony want £114 to repair him which is too much for me at the moment. I've tried popping him open to have a look but the Sony ninjas have him locked down tight. It's weird. Occasionally he'll power up and work perfectly for a few minutes but then he'll just turn off, leaving the lens extended.

I'd rather buy a new camera as a semi-permenant solution until either I can afford a proper camera or afford to repair Steve. So, I'm in the market for a cheap, small-ish, powerful, flexible point-and-shoot. I would one day like to own a DSLR but at the prices they go for it's but a pipe dream at the moment. That was what I liked about Steve. Stick him in Auto mode and you could take decent photos quickly and easily. This was especially useful for gigs and nights out with friends. Stick him in manual and you could tweak pretty much everything except for the aperture (my one problem with Steve.)

I don't mind buying used as long as it's in decent condition. I'd like something that uses either MSPro Duo, XD or SD cards as I have loads of these cards lying around. Something with a little more than the standard 3x of optical zoom would be nice but isn't essential. Wide angle performance is more important to me. My budget is about £70-80 which I know is nothing but it's about all I can afford at the moment.

Thanks guys!

For that price I wouldn't know, but I can say it might be worth looking at your options: http://amzn.to/ac0rUn

kinda hard to look for a camera for you with that price range :/

maybe you should save a bit ? :D



http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Ca...d800is.asp

7.1 million effective pixels
28-105mm f/2.8-5.8
2.5" LCD
16 MB SD card included

???

Senseito7 Wrote: [ -> ]For that price I wouldn't know, but I can say it might be worth looking at your options: http://amzn.to/ac0rUn

The GE camera that's top of the list looks alright but I've never known GE to make cameras which suggests to me it's probably a re-branded generic Chinese model. Thanks anyways. Further down the list I spotted the Fuji Finepix AX280 which I'll come back to in a minute.

boogschd Wrote: [ -> ]
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Ca...d800is.asp

7.1 million effective pixels
28-105mm f/2.8-5.8
2.5" LCD
16 MB SD card included

???

Looks good but I can't find it for sale anywhere. Always the way isn't it.

So back to the Fuji. I've found an AX280 for sale at a local supermarket. I had a quick look through the spec list and it ticks all the boxes but its just a littel bit too expensive. So I hit eBay. Still no dice. A bit of Google Shopping later I found a refurbished one with a full 12 month warranty for sale on the Fuji website for £63.37 plus £5 postage. A quick google later I found a discount code that brought the whole lot including postage down to £62.02 leaving me £7 to get it a nice new 4GB SD card off eBay.

Win? Should I order it now or does anyone know of something else that no one's found yet?

Seems like a good deal. Idiots reviewed it on Amazon but the general consensus seemed to be that it does great images and decent video. That said, you're saving quite a bit with that price.