Casio QV-8000SX

I have owned the camera since October 1999 and then spent ca. DM 1400.- . I have since updated the camera with a 48MB memory card ( starts at around £ 100 ). I can now take about 100 pictures with the highest possible quality.

This really is a camera for people who like to experiment. Out of the non-professional cameras this one has the largest zoom, which is similar to a 35mm’s 40 to 320mm range. The exposure times are between 1/200 to 64 (!) seconds. This is an excellent feature and so far I’ve taken many pictures at night, particularly of the stars.

If you are not totally daft, you will find the 8000SX easy to use, most of it will be intuitive anyway. This was a bit of a surprise for me at first, given the many functions. It also has a continuous mode function and can shoot sequences of up to about 10 secs. These sequences can later be turned into avi-files on your PC.

The transmission software is very good, too. It creates a complete HTML/Java archive on your hard-drive. This archive is clear and can be accessed from any browser.

The LCD display is high quality and totally sufficient to quickly look at your latest shots.

The disadvantages:

- the 1,3 megapixel resolution can be outdone by many models these days. On the other hand you have this large zoom.
- It uses a lot of energy. I advise on using NIMH batteries with 1500mA.