I have to be honest - when I was looking for a digitial camera I was primarily after something that had a good macro facility, but this camera proved to be much more than that!
The camera itself ------------------------ It is a nice light, compact and easy camera to handle. The battery and Compact Flash slots are easy to access. You will find the camera a nice size to shoot photos with, unless you have large hands or thick fingers. The majority of users will find it very nice indeed.
Settings ----------- As I mentioned above - I was primarily after a Digital Camera that had a good macro facility. This one did not dissappoint - as I will go onto below. What I like about this camera though are the 10 or so settings built in that enable quick and efficient change to Night photo, landscape view, macro, portrait etc... Lots of the type of settings that all general camera users would find useful. All are set using the view on the LCD panel. It can be all too fidley to set-up a camera for these types of use, but this camera makes the whole thing very simplistic, with good results.
Photo Quality ------------------ This camera is 4 megapixels. This resolution gives you quality pictures up to around A4 size. You can shoot at the highest resolution or ramp this down to lower settings to store more pictures on your CF card. I shot a few hundred pictures on holiday in South Africa at one of the middle settings. When home I loaded them from the CF onto my PC and printed them in colour at A4 size, expanding them to fit the whole page. The results were very very acceptible indeed. Some lovely clear and detailed pictures were achieved.
Macro Facility ------------------ A lot of cameras say they have macro facilities. This is generally a load of nonsense, as you cannot get detailed macro pictures in the true sense of the term. If you are shooting Macro from 30cm you need to have a good lense and resolution to catch the detail. This camera blew me away with its macro facility. You can literally shoot pictures from 3-4 cms away from the subject and achieve crystal clear and highly defined pictures. If you need a camera for taking pictures of small objects close-up this is a real draw for this model. It is so accurate that you can easily see all the dust particles on the focus object.....
Zoom -------- This camera has a 3x optical zoom. The digital zoom is rubbish, but then it is rubbish on any camera! When buying only pay attention to optical zoom. The good thing about this camera is that even at the high end of the zoom the picture is still nice and clear. I have used cameras that say they have 10x optical zoom, yet they may as well have much less seeing how bad their picture quality is. A plus in my book for this one.
Price ------- You can now get this camera for around £200. For that price I think you are getting a bargain. The range of options for the general use photographer are excellent, easy to use and produce great results. What more can you ask for?
A couple of not so good points ----------------------------------------- Well you can't have you cake and eat it can you! There are a couple of little things that I would rate as minor inconveniences with this camera, but not important enough to cause me not to recommend it. Firstly if you use the flash it takes around 4-5 seconds to recover to be able to use the flash again. It signals this to you by flashing a little red LED whilst it is recovering. Not a big issue. Secondly the writing of the photo to the Compact Flash card is a little slow - ie: it takes about 1 second. For cheaper range cameras I don't really think you have cause to complain, so again not a major issue.
Summary ------------- I would definately recommend this camera for anyone who needs to take a camera around with them to parties, holidays where good general pictures are needed and for those who shoot photos for fun. It is also EXCELLENT for a cheap price true MACRO camera. If you are after something to take pictures at a distance that requires zoom or you want superior quality specialist pictures you are best looking in the SLR territory at tripple the price of this cheap, honest and very cheerful model. Get yourself a high speed 512MB or 1GB card and you will be able to shoot hundreds of pictures and can sort them all out when you get home!
More details
Durability
Good
Reliability
Excellent
Size
Small
Weight
Very Light
Instruction Manual
Excellent
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