Help with buying a camera please.

[danfreeman83]

Hi,

I've recently decided to get a digital camera for the first time. I'm not seriously into photography but would like something half decent to take with me to gigs and on holiday etc. I'm willing to spend up to about £200 and I want a compact camera. I know i'm not going to get anything spectacular for this price but can anyone suggest a camera that might get some ok photos mainly at gigs. Or, will it be pretty much impossible to get any good photos from a compact camera under these conditions? I recently went to see AC/DC at Wembley and wanted to take some pictures but was too far away to use my camera phone. I realise these forums are more for serious photography but any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.s I've read lost of reviews and the Panasonic Lumix cameras look quite good?

Cheers

Dan

[alanS]

Hello,

I think that you'll get a compact that'll give you better performance and a longer zoom than your camera phone pretty easily. The problem might be taking shots at gigs as I assume that the lighting won't be fantastic and the subject will be too far away for the cameras flash to be any use?

As well as the Panasonic range you could also take a look at the Canon Ixus range. They normally get decent reviews and they have optical viewfinders too, although admittedly small.

I think that to get good shots at gigs you'd have to learn more about aperture, shutter and ISO settings and you'd probably have to buy a more specialist and more expensive "compact" camera like the Panasonic LX3, which has a wider aperture and better low light performance than some compact cameras, or even better a DSLR.

[IvorETower]

If you're after photos at gigs, taken from posibly quite a way back from the stage, have a look at the Lumix TZ range as they have "extended range" zoom lenses, and I think all of them have some form of image stabilisation built in too. Fuji do some good high-zoom cameras, the F100fd is excellent but the telephoto end of the zoom isn't as good as the Panasonic's