Digital Cameras

[chrisvenus]

Well, I've said I'd buuy one for a long time and recently I've been really yearning for one. So I am looking at amazon. 170 quid for the nice pocketsized Olympus Mju 410. My main requirement is something small that can fit in a pocket. I am not a great photographer and all I want is something that will be portable and allow me to photograph my friends when they least suspect it.

So yeah, the Olympus Mju 410 is nice and pocketsized. 4ish Megapixels which is a decent enough quality. It does some movie stuff which I guess is a bonus. I'll be buying an extra 512Meg card for it so that I ahve room for pictures.

Anybody care to suggest a reason that I might not want to buy this or suggest something else that is better for comparable price?

Oh, and I get a free carry case things from amazon if i buy it from there. Bonus.

So, help me shop people! Help me overcome the procrastination phase!

Comments

[chrisvenus]

I've actually heard good things about the battery time. That may have been if you have the back screen off though. Certainly somebody else who has the mju 400 said that it wasn't worht buying a spare battery. "It lasted me glastonbury weekend and another two weeks after that" seemed to be more than enough. :)

[chrisvenus]

For me most of the point of a digital camera is I can take a zillion photos so I don't need to worry if some of them aren't perfect. There's a little window to look through and that's more than enough for me. :) A second battery is of teh order of 20 quid so it wouldn't break the bank too much even if i did decide to get one. :)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I tend to use the viewfinder to take the photo, with the screen switched off. The model of camera I have turns the screen on for a few seconds after each shot to give you a chance to check it. This seems to conserve battery life quite well (I got through one and a bit CRV3 batteries taking something like 1200 photos over 2 months).

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

What's the analogue zoom like? Fixed focus cameras can be really limited, and digital zoom is just throwing away information.

[chrisvenus]

Not sure about the focus thing but yes, I ignore digital zoom. I can do it as easily in software if I want to. Analogue zoom is somethinglike 3x which seems to be standard for the sort of size of camera I'm looking at.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it'd be a perfectly decent general purpose camera then.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

digital zoom is just throwing away information

Not necessarily. You're cropping rather than magnifying the picture, sure, but since the digital zoom is applied before encoding to jpeg, you may find (if the camera is at all sensible, and I don't know which are and which aren't) that the resulting image file uses more bits for your digitally-zoomed picture than it would have used on that section of the full-sized picture had you not digitally zoomed.

That said, I almost never use digital zoom.

[becky-spence.livejournal.com]

This weekend I went off to Jessops with Oli to purchase him a digital camera. He ended up with a Canon - which is the size of a credit card, thin, light weight (cost £200, granted) with a _huge_ screen for photos at the back, 3x optical zoom, and extra memory cards are really quite cheap (he got a 250meg one for £30). I'm not sure on the megapixels...

[chrisvenus]

Don't suppose you know what model so I can look it up? Sounds good but I'm guessing not really as thin as a credit card. The mju I'm loking at is "9.9 cm x 3.4 cm x 5.6 cm" which fits in the pocket comfortably (I tried it with a friends).

[becky-spence.livejournal.com]

um...*looks sheepish* I think it was an I - with some numbers. It's not as thin as a credit card, but it is the size of one.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

One thing I'd suggest is that memory cards very occasionally fail. When they do, typically the entire card fails. So unless it would be much more expensive, it might be better to get a few smaller cards rather than one huge one, so that when it eventually happens to you, you lose less.

[chrisvenus]

Sounds like its probably sensible if it doesn't cost much more. I shall look into the possibilities. :)

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

As an early adopter, all I can do is tell you about the Epson I have which is the size of a Nissan Micra.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Amazon has it for £160

[brrm.livejournal.com]

Just to summarise the points I made on Saturday about the mju400:

Pro:

• Proper optical zoom
  
• ISO-rated Splashproof - I've taken photos in a downpour with no ill effects.
  
• Small enough to be take-anywhere
  
• Very satisfactory battery life
  
• Picture quality seems entirely acceptable for the size
  
• Very quick to turn on and be ready to take the first photo
  
• Robust metal body, pretty looks :)
  

Con:

• Almost no manual features whatsoever - though it does have the usual modes to switch between, e.g. night shot, portrait, etc
  
• No focus-assist light - this supposedly makes it perform less well focusing in low light, but so far I've not found it too bad at this.
  
• Weak point on the memory card door latch
  

You can see some more photos I've taken with it here and here.

I presume you've already been pointed at http://www.steves-digicams.com/ and http://www.dpreview.com/?

Olympus also make a 'mju Mini' - but that has less optical zoom and isn't that much smaller, so probably isn't worth it.