Digital camera recommendation?

Can anyone recommend a small, light, easy to carry digital camera that I could take with me on long runs? I see sights on the trails that I'd love to be able to take home with me. I've held of buying a digital camera as I've always seemed to have some more urgent use for my money, but I think the time has come to invest.

Any advice very gratefullly received :)

Comments

  • You can go from one extreme to another with camera's. It realy depends on what you would like to do with the pictures etc. You can get low cost low res camera's for around £100.00 (kodak!), great for occational snaps which you email to friends etc. I've just bought my wife a sony DSC-P7 for £310.00. Its great quality, built well, small, easy to use and has a good Lithium battery life. The model below it, has the same features, just uses standard batteries and is a little bigger! I think this come in at around £240.00 On the other hand a friend of mine has just bought the canon ixus, digital camera, very small and good quality! Anyway, good source for reviews is amazon and the best place for prices was www.empiredirect.co.uk
    Hope this helps!
    Chris
  • How about a mobile phone that takes pictures not sure if you can download them on to a pc and print of though
  • I've got a L'Espion. It's tiny (about the size of a matchbox), but as you'd expect the image resolution is... well... quite poor. It can take 20 pics in high res, and 40 in low res, and retails at around £40 (I think)
  • I've got a Mustek GSmart Mini 2 that I use for that purpose, its tiny - the same size as a credit card, its got 1.3 megapixel resolution and unlike the espion the pictures are actually in focus. It can store over 50 pictures and it was only £40.

    The main thing I went for was cheapness but it actually performs reasonably well unless you're inside.
  • Depends on the sort of quality you expect. I've just bought the beautiful little Canon ixus v3 and I'm delighted with it. It was £350 which is a bit expensive but it's really well built and its 3m pixels
  • Here,

    here,

    or here!..


    All the above are suitable for small photos/web usage pictures, and would be of little or no encumbrance on a run. Not really suitable for large prints though, so you'd need a 2nd digital camera for that if you brought one of thecheapies above. Was thinking of getting one myself, but this'll wait till I've got the mp3 player.
    Hope my web-sleuth skills were of assistance,
    KK
  • I took an Espion with me for FLM2002 - pics came out OK, but its hard running and taking snaps at the same time !
  • Hi Wee P, stevi's suggestion is one I use - my mobile (Ericsson T68i) takes photos with a small digital camera attachment. You can download to PC or send as an email attachment whilst you are still running (if anyone at home or in the office can't really wait until you're back!) It's featured on p65 of the January RW and is a fun gadget - particularly if you normally run with a mobile.

    Quality is pretty good, largest pictures 640 x 480 pixels (JPEG) and 40kb. Not as high resolution perhaps as the digital cameras listed elsewhere in this thread but more than adequate for recording scenery/landscape shots whilst out running (assuming you are out in daylight!).

    If you don't need digital format but need something small and cheap what about disposable 35mm cameras??
  • If you know what camera or resolution you want try to buy through dabs direct (www.dabs.com). I bought my Fuji Finepix 2600 zoom through them, and they were about 15% cheaper than anywhere else (I bought mine about 9 months ago, so the price isn't comparable).
  • WeePee - Ive got a chunky kodak - which takes nice piccies - but bought a dinky little espion from tesco b4 chrimbo for 30 quid - its not bad - very tiny but the pic quality is pretty average - however it is fun and good for 'snaps' and webpics if you dont want quality - surf the sites and you might pickone up - there are a few mini digicams about around the 40-50 £s mark so you should find something
  • Go for the Canon, that's the proverbial canine's dangly bits and the one my fellrunning friends always seem to haul out of their sodden cagouls when you least expect it. Anyway, as a musician, you will know you get what you pay for, and it's always possible to justify expensive kit!
  • Many thanks to everyone for the very helpful recommendations :-)

    The Canon sounds wonderful - Laura, it sounds like you're reading my mind! :-) - but it may be that I can manage with one of the less sophisticated ones just for long run pics. Hmmm.... I'll have another think, but now I know which ones to be looking at.

    Many thanks again, folks :-)
  • Update, folks :)

    Out of all the cameras mentioned, the Canon Ixus was the one that really appealed to me. So... I bought a Fuji FinePix 50i instead :-)

    If I can work out how it works, I may be able to get some piccies at Helsby on Sunday :-)

    Thanks again, folks :-)
  • Wee P, Jessops and Boots both do prints from memory sticks now and it's much cheaper than printing on your PC if you want to do loads. I find 10 A4 prints onto photo paper and my colour cartridge is getting low!
  • Many thanks for the tip, Helen :)
  • I use a Fuji Finepix as well. Brilliant, after I realised I need rechargeable batteries (ordinary ones don't hack it), and a bigger memory card.
  • Helen,

    This one comes with a rechargable battery. It does everthing from a cradle. I'm going to get a spare battery. Can you recommend a particular make, or are they all much teh same? And also re: memory cards?
  • Don't get a mem stick that's too enormous as I did hear that the v big ones cause difficulties at Jessops etc if you do print from stick. I have a couple of 64mb sticks and they hold loads of pics even at quite a high resolution. ( It's not my gear, it all belongs to my dept at school alas!) I tend to burn all my pic files onto rewritable CDs as they clog up your hard drive a bit and also I'm paranoid that if comupter does it's crash thing and needs re-configuring (again) i'll lose them all.
  • I just got back from Jessops with a bit of a Bargin - Concord eye Q digital camera, 1meg, 40 - 80 photo storage, flash, 3x optical zoom on £50 in their sale.

    Just tried it out and the photos are reasonable - definately good enough to put up on a website which is all I'm after and at that price I won't cry (too much!) if I take it out running and loose it.

    Lindi
  • For camera reviews, I reccomend: www.dpreview.com . More technical details thatn you can shake astick at.

    The Canon Digital Ixus 3 is the most popular review there. I've got the Ixus's bigger and heavier (but cheaper) brother - the Canon A40, and I'm very satisfied, except I'd like it to be lighter and smaller.

    For cheap batteries, memory cards, etc, I use: http://www.7dayshop.com
    eg: 64Mb compact flash is less than £17

    Standard disclaimer - no commercial interest, just a satisfied customer.

    Jay
  • I bought Mr SP a Pentax optio 330rs for christmas. You can get them for under £300 if you look on the web. It's small, fairly light, has 3 million pixels, good resolution prints up to A4 and has full manual override (also 8 colour filters etc etc)for fancier photography if you want it. We get great results even on the point and shoot mode.

    The 4 million pixel version can be got for about £ 330-£340 now.
  • .....check out

    www.parkcameras.co.uk

    Pentax 330RS £289.99

    Note RS not GS...... GS has no manual override
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