Buying Guide »


Introduction

Long gone are the days of 36 shot films and disposable flashes. The evolution of the age of the digital camera has allowed novice and expert photographers alike to review, edit and improve the quality of their pictures. Be it for the family album pic or the artistic landscape shot, the Ciao Shopping Guide to Digital Cameras gives you overview of some of the major features to look for when making your purchasing decision.


Price + Size

As you would expect, the average price of a digital camera can vary highly depending on the specifications you are looking for. For a camera that provides a basic offering, you can spend as little as £50, but expect the quality of your photos to suffer as a result. While improvements to the number of megapixels offered by cheaper cameras have been made, buyers need to look at many other factors if they want a camera that takes the perfect shot. The lack of a decent zoom, battery life, decent flash and sufficient image and editing features will all have a detrimental effect on the final photo quality. The better you want your camera to perform in these particular areas, the more you will have to spend. Good quality digital cameras will cost between £150 and £200, with the best products starting at just over £300.


Digital cameras by price



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Reviews of Digital Cameras »

Wow - Great performance and HD video

Advantages: HD video and fantastic picture quality
Disadvantages: None

As a professional photographer I would have no hesitation in recommending this camera to anyone at all. Suberb features and HD video. Battery life for me was really good but HD video really fills the memory cards quickly, worth having a few. It is an expesive camera but it is worth bearing in mind that this is top of the range for point and shoot and you really do get what you pay for. It is packed full of features and the display is simply superb. ...

denezzar 26.11.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7

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Panasonic Lumix TZ6, Versatile compact with great image quality

Advantages: Fantastic little camera with 12 x zoom & 10.1MP (better than TZ5), but cheaper than TZ7
Disadvantages: No HD movie mode, not very cheap

The Panasonic Lumix TZ6 is a great little camera that I have used to compliment my large DSLR (a Nikon D90 I have also reviewed), which is too big and expensive to be taken everywhere. Specification The TZ6 is compact camera with 10.1 MP, which is plenty of pixels for all but the larger prints and harshest crops. This means that in normal conditions there will never be pixelation, in fact too many megapixels squashed onto a sensor can actually ...
...PowerShot SX200 IS), so the Panasonic Lumix TZ range pretty much has the market to itself. The TZ6 has the advantage over the TZ5 with and extra 1 megapixel and 2 x zoom, as well as a slightly different styling. As far as I have seen the TZ6 is not thatmuch more expensive than the TZ5, so I found it worth getting the newer model. The TZ7 is the most recent release in the series and is almost exactly the same as the TZ6 both with 10.1 MP and 12x zoom ...

potoroo99 19.09.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ6

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It took me time to decide

Advantages: Zoom, small size, picture quality, playback and review
Disadvantages: Screen display a little grainy, doesn't like fluorescent lights, no optical video zoom

...general public reviews on the Canon Powershot 200sx I took the plunge and bought it. As this was my first digital camera I was somewhat apprehensive, maybe the thing would be too complex or too expensive for an entry level camera novice such as myself to take. At £243 (before the £40 cashback offer, which took a month to arrive) perhaps a slightly older model model at £120-150 would've been a wiser purchase. Aesthetically beautiful with a large 3" ...
...impressions I seem to have made the right decision. The flash though always pops up and stays up, for some this is annoying for me it really means nothing, as I'm too busy learning the features and practicing picture taking. There are many preset modes such as landscape, indoor, outdoor, people and pet, not to mention simple mode where one can not really change anything and is as fully automatic as the camera can get. The camera then goes up in complexity ...

gideon 05.10.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Canon PowerShot SX200 IS

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excellent

Advantages: zoom options, quality, size
Disadvantages: price and scratches easy

The Olympus Tough 8000 digital camera is fantastic. I bought this as a gift for my dad as he and my mother holiday a lot. I have to say it’s a fantastic little camera the durability is fab, the underwater photos come out excellent I was surprised at how clear they were, the picture quality is second to none and can’t be faulted at all. The zoom facilities are also a great, with several to choose from. I'm so glad i chose this for my dad its perfect ...

gemmagem1987 05.11.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of Olympus µ[mju:] Tough 8000

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Superb Camera

Advantages: Slim; Easy to use; Vast number of settings; Massive touch screen
Disadvantages: Sensitive

I got this camera for Christmas last year, and it works brilliantly! The quality is astounding, I don't think I have taken a bad picture yet! It has been on numerous travels with me and is still in one piece which I was not expecting because of the large touch screen on the bad. The touch screen is one feature that really takes this camera to another level. It was not the reason I bought the camera but if I needed to buy another camera I would definitely ...
...The reason I wanted this camera was because of its size. It is very very slim, and will fit into my pocket, with ease. Other features I have been impressed with are the different modes, and settings that you can choose, and you can adjust manually. There is so much you can do with this camera, in my opinion. One slight problem I have with this camera, is that occasionally the touch screen will not respond, which makes it difficult to do anything ...

luke1986 20.11.2009 · Read full review

Review of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T90

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