Mid range compacts

Arrowhead

Arrowhead

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West Yorkshire
Since I can't go on borrowing my wife's camera forever, I've spent the afternoon trying and failing to decide on a new one for my use. I know that some of you gents are seriously knowledgeable about digital cameras, whereas I now realise that I'm hopelessly behind the times, so I wonder if I could pick your brains?

What I'm looking for is a good quality compact which won't seem obsolete by this time next year. Here are the things which aren't negotiable:

- Compact; I'm not in the market for an SLR
- Quality optics
- Robust build
- A fully manual mode
- Good performance with close-ups.

Here's the stuff which isn't important:

- Huge zoom range
- Fancy smile detection modes and so forth
- Movies
- Price, up to a point.

Now, I realise that there probably aren't many bad cameras on the market so long as you don't go to Netto for it, but I'd appreciate a bit of input from anyone who has some recent experience. Two models seem to stand out for me, the Panasonic TZ8 and the Samsung WB600, with the Samsung EX 1 as a possibility right up at the top end of what I'm looking at paying. Any pointers would be very much appreciated.
 
My wife has the Panasonic TZ3 which I guess is a forerunner of the TZ8. It's a cracking camera, she's made up with it. It has a Leica lens, and my camera-nut friend rates Leica lenses highly.

That's my two-penneth.
 
I read a lot of things about Leica in various places, and I think that there are one or two things that people should be aware of.

Certainly, at some stage, Leica cameras and optics were at the top of the league, but to acquire Leica optics of that quality, you have to pays hundreds, if not thousands of pounds.

Here is an example. In my photographic repairing days, I used to quite commonly get a Minolta Riva Zoom 90C on my bench. The shutter linking flexes used to fail, and I used to replace these quite often. There was also a Leica C2 Zoom but it was EXACTLY the same as the Minolta camera, but with slightly different casings, and with Leica written on the casings, and with the famous red badge. Oh, and it was £150 quid dearer than the Minolta to buy. We could never get parts out of Leitz, so I used Minolta parts to repair the Leica verison of the camera. As I said, identical.

So, just bear these things in mind when looking at cameras. There was always quite a lot of "badge engineering" going on (still is).


Ian
 
Must be a couple of year now. It was her introduction to the world of digital cameras, so I wanted to make sure that she got something intuitive (she's blumin hopeless when it comes to technology) but also that would take decent pictures. It scores highly on both counts.
 
Optics are always compromised with a compact Andy. Your'e requirements are really pointing to an SLR and a good friend of mine swears by his Nikon D3000 which I think you might be able to pick up for around the £300 mark. It might be at the lower end of the SLR scale but the size of that lens will more than make up for it especially in macro.

Don't know if you can go all manual on it though.
 
Thanks chaps.

CD: If the gloss hasn't gone off it after a couple of years, that's a good sign. I'm all for simplicity of operation too, which is why I'm looking for a full manual mode: at least I understand that.

Tony: well you're right of course, but it's a question of portability. Gone are the days when I was willing to lug around a gadget bag and a big Manfrotto on a regular basis so I'm willing to compromise a little on absolute image quality. Looking at the samples on Photography Blog, the better compacts seem to be pretty good nowadays.
 
She certainly had it in 2008 for our Alberta holiday, and we've just come back from BC and she's still got it. I took my SLR which is an Olympus E500 - not a photographer's camera I guess, but one which does what I want.

If you compare pictures she took against ones I took I would say the ones taken on mine have slightly better colour, and I'd put that down to the bigger lens letting more light in. But then, she can slip hers in a pocket, I have to have a bag for mine.

It's agony trying to make this sort of choice I know, they all seem to have similar but slightly differing features.
 
Im no Photography buff by any shot - But i picked up a Panasonic Lumix TZ65 for a trip to the US earlier this year and ive been very pleased with it.
Leica optics , wide angle lens.. However it isnt fully manual. I couldn't say if the newer version are or not.

Only downer on the camera is it absolutely eats batteries alive and Panasonic have had a habit of updating the firmware to lockout 3rd party batteries.
However the latest gen of 3rd party batteries work fine. (£10 a battery vs £30 from Panasonic)
 
I am in the same position after loosing my camera which was a Canon Ixus 860. Having looked around the TZ8 and TZ7 stand out as good models. The TZ7 looks to be better specification if you do not want videos in HD.

Need to to some more research and usually I go to a Jessops and hold a few and see what one "feels" right for me but I believe you are sifting the best of them, it is just down to feature set that appeals to you the most now.
 
A bridge would be a good compromise, the panasonic Lumix seem to be good.
I've had great success with a Sony H5, The Fujifilm ones are great too.
One thing I looked for in a bridge was the ability to use standard rechargeable AA's

That way you just buy a few packs, and always have a few ready to go.
(and you can get a car/travel charger)

That's just my 0,02€

FB.
 
Slightly disagree with the above...what ever you do get something with lithium ion cell, you shouldn't need a spare unless you are taking many many hundreds of shots per day.

I loved my Fujifilm F30 until I "misplaced" it, the CCD's on Fuji's are very good in low light.
 
Just because Leica make the lens, it does not mean you're going to get M series quality. They make "cheap" lenses for compacts but this is not what Leica are renowned for.

The sensor is the weak link here, no matter how good the lens. And in a compact it's tiny, which means greater noise at high ISO, and much harder to get shallow depth of field.

I wouldn't recommend a compact to anyone for anything other than party snaps. At a push the Canon G series are pretty good.

Panasonic actually make the Leica compacts, which are just re-badged and with different firmware.

John
 
jhclare said:
At a push the Canon G series are pretty good.
Click to expand...
This made me smile. My camera mate had a special face he used to pull when anyone mentioned Canon cameras. It was the sort of face I expect a man would pull having just licked one of his own turds. He would then say, "Canon? Don't they make photocopiers?"

Always used to crack me up.
 
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