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 »

Canon Powershot SX1 IS Not as good as I expected

Advantages: a point and shoot 20x lens, reasonably good LCD screen
Disadvantages: image quality not great, pretty useless viewfinder, can be overly complicated to setup, CD manual

The Canon Powershot SX1 IS seems to offer the impossible, read the reviews and it seems image quality is great, the lens has an amazing range of 28-560mm, its image stabilised, its got high quality move mode, ... Having taken about 500 pictures with it so far I am not that impressed. Take the camera out of the box charge some batteries add an SD card and see what you have got. The lens diameter is miniscule when compared to an SLR , nothing unexpected ...
...a digital SLR like the Canon 5d and you will see what I mean. 2. Viewfinder is virtually useless for anything other than landscapes. It is dark and impossible to see detail, you have a 560mm telephoto lens and its impossible to see let alone focus upon a bird in a tree even at 50-100 feet. So using the LCD screen is a must, and that is a pain if you are used to a camera with a decent viewfinder and it will drain the batteries. 3. My suspicion is ...

tsahugh 24.02.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Canon PowerShot SX1 IS

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Cool Camera

Advantages: Great Camera and plenty of Features
Disadvantages: None I see anything

...free software to download from Fujifilm for the S-model instead of FineViewer 5.5 - it worked prefect under all Windows included Vista 32/64 - no problems at all - it support SD/SDHC and Xd Picture card (best if you get SDHC with class 6 that make lots speed - I used Kingston 4GB) -- Im much happy that I got it and the price still quite steep but still worth to grab it and some online offer 1 or 2 years warranty, I got 2 years warranty. Highly recommend!!! ...

Lucky0967 06.04.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of Fujifilm FinePix S100FS

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Brilliant camera - VALUE for money.

Advantages: Cheap, light, superb zoom function, acts as a video camera, strong
Disadvantages: Few upgrades

I received this wonderful camera as a gift for Christmas in 2006. The camera has unleashed a passion within myself for photography - that's how much i like it. The lightweight body and ease of use present me with little need to buy a smaller compact digital camera. The photos that are produced from the camera are professional quality, and one of mine has even made it onto a motor-journalist website when i was just 16 at the time. The only problem ...

jch1990 05.07.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Fujifilm FinePix S6500fd

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A camera certainly worth it's value.

Advantages: Very steady capture capability, very slim and chic, very relliable.
Disadvantages: The lens faults with frequent usage, the video quality could be better.

...the technology and design. Olympus has always been good at what they do, and that is making cameras. This 7.1 mega pixel camera comes with about 15 different modes of still picture capture. The camera adjusts the exposure and other factors automatically depending on the mode you select. The picture quality is also beyond awesome. The only issue I had with the camera was after about one year of usage the lens malfunctions. My agent said that its ...

fireblaze747 10.07.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Olympus µ[MJU:] 700 Digital

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Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W7

Advantages: Brilliant perfomance everytime, sturdy, easy-to-use camera
Disadvantages: None

I bought one of these cameras two years ago, after doing some extensive research on various digital cameras. I still use this camera today and it still takes brilliant photographs. It's easy to use and the 2.5-inch LCD screen on the back of the camera turns the Cyber-shot DSC-W7 into the ideal photo viewer for playing back or sharing images in the form of a slideshow. It's also well sized for framing shots and allows easy access to the menu screens ...
...a more traditional way to frame shots in the shape of an optical viewfinder.Together with zoom and host of other functions, this sturdy little camera will produce outstanding shots no matter what your experience. The photographs are always sharp with brilliant colour performance. So if you're looking for a professional camera without the price tag, this is the camera for you., ...

Hi-5-Journo 26.07.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W7

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