Don't know which digital camera?

[Birchy]

Hi everyone - Is there anyone out there who knows of a digital camera which has more than 6 mega pixels and a good optical zoom for a budget of around £200?

I want to use it for the usual things such as family and holiday photo's but I also want to use it for taking pictures of wildlife e.g. wild birds. So the camera needs to be stylish and compact as I don't want to look out of place in company.

The camera I have my eye on is the Ricoh Caplio R7 which is 8.3 million mega pixels and 7.1 optical zoom. It looks quite smart as well with good reviews but there's that many camera's to choose from am a bit confused about which one to buy. Please help me!

[rainmaker]

Just bought a 2nd hand Canon 300D. Not instamatic type, it's an SLR - £183 off ebay.

Also, the Nikon D70 goes for similar,and also has 6.3mp.

Maybe better (in the long run) than an insta type?

[rscott74]

Birchy you say "stylish and compact as I don't want to look out of place in company". The end result is more important than looks surely?
My advice is before you buy give it a try - for looks, operation and output.

[glsammy]

Sticking to your budget of £200, have a look at the Panasonic range. They know how to make good cameras, with good zoom range.
I've just received an email offering the Panasonic TZ3 for £175, including next day delivery.
Its details: 7.2million pixels, 10X Optical Zoom Lens. Image stabilizer, 3" LCD, uses SD & SD-HC cards.
Sounds good to me!

[Maccattack]

try one of the panasonic compacts with a zeiss lens , or as they say a second hand slr ( much more flexible long term ) the D70 is very good .Pah beaten to it see above
Malcolm

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by Maccattack

try one of the panasonic compacts with a zeiss lens , or as they say a second hand slr ( much more flexible long term ) the D70 is very good .Pah beaten to it see above
Malcolm

Great minds and all that!

[naturelover]

i have a konica digital,quit satisfied with that.

[Paul mabbott]

Can say no more except that there was a good Fuji on sale at my local Sainsburys last week for £175 - 7.5Mp ...... "stylish"? Have no idea ... not my scene! But a good camera probably as most of the Fujis are.

[Birchy]

Thanks glsammy I will look into that Panasonic camera, sounds like a good deal. Thanks for all your replys

[eccles]

You mention that you want to shoot wildlife such as wild birds. This requirement may drive you towards one of the superzooms or, as already suggested, a second hand DSLR. With the normal telephoto range of most compacts you won't be able to get close enough. Before upgrading to a DSLR I had a Canon S3 which had a telephoto range up to 432mm (35mm equivalent) and I still couldn't get close enough to small birds. I Added a 1.5x tele attachment, which meant an equivalent of 648mm telephoto, and that was good enough for quite nice pictures once they were cropped a bit.
Similarly with the DSLR I found I needed a 400mm telephoto which with a 1.5x cropped sensor put me up in the same range of around 600mm effective.
BTW, don't pay too much attention to the number of megapixels. The actual sensor size is far more important than the number of photosites it has.
Take a look at DPReview (forget the url name but google will find it) for lots of camera reviews.