Well my trusty Kodak DC-210 Plus has just fired its last shot. So as if I wasn't skint enough I now need to look at getting a replacement.

My thoughts are, do I get another stills camera or do I spend a little more and get a DV camera with a stills facility? On the subject of picture quality, I was perfectly happy with the quality of the kodak.

Anyone got any ideas/recommendations? I'd say £500 is probably my limit.

Any DV camera will probably give you crappy stills. I have a Canon Elura 40MC and it's nice for video, but sucks for still photos. I believe there is one company that has a swiveling lens that has video on one side and a 4 megapixel still CCD on the other. The reviews noted that the camera didn't do either well. Most DV cameras will only give you 1 megapixel resolution anyway.

That is an old camera...

Looking here DPReview suggests that it had a 1meg sensor. Just about any "real" (discounting the "toy" ones) digital stills camera on the market is probably going to match it for picture quality (except maybe the tiny ones with small lenses).

I not convinced on the stills from a DV camera idea, all the stills I have seen from those cameras are pretty low quality. At under £500 we are talking about the lower end of the DV market as well, which probably won't help.

However, for £500 you can just about get a DV camera AND a digital stills camera and have the "best" of both worlds.

There are a couple of DV cameras here at just over £300 (£315 being the cheapest):

http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/a-panasonic-nvds60b-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/a-jvc-GRD20-deals.htm

On the same site you will find a range of digital stills cameras that are less than £200. For example I bought this Casio for my Dad for his birthday:

http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Casio-Exilim-EX-S20-digital-camera-deals.htm

That probably wouldn't suit you because it doesn't have a zoom that you are used to. There are plenty of other that do. For example:

http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Canon-PowerShot-A60-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Canon-Digital-Ixus-II-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/casio-qv2900ux-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/fuji-a303-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Kodak-Easyshare-DX6340-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/minolta-dimage-s304-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/nikon-coolpix-3100-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Olympus-Camedia-C-350-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/sony-cybershot-p52-digital-camera-deals.htm

You can see a whole list of cameras under £200 here:

http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/digital-camera-price-A.htm

Of course, if you decided to spend all of your £500 on a stills camera you could get a very good camera:

http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Nikon-Coolpix-5400-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Canon-Powershot-G5-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/nikon-coolpix-4500-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Sony-Cyber-shot-DSC-V1-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Fuji-Finepix-S5000-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/fuji-finepix-s602-digital-camera-deals.htm

P.S. I have no connection with Internet Cameras Direct, except as a happy customer...
P.P.S. Don't forget to budget for a memory card, camera rarely come with a big enough. Also if you get a camera that takes AA batteries makes sure you budget for a couple of sets of Ni-MH batteries and a charger.

I should have said, while I pay attention to the digital stills market I am not up on DV. So please don't take those two DV cameras I linked to as a recommendation, I don't know how good they are

Thanks for the info Andy, I was hoping you'd be able to give me your opinion. In fact I hadn't realised stills cameras where that cheap now. I paid nearly £500 for the kodak 6 years ago. Nowadays it seems I can get an ixus for just over £200, sod the DV I might just get the canon and divert the other money to my mythbox project.

The problem with the Ixus is that because it is a very small camera the lens is physically very small. Small lenses typically mean reduced image quality.

I would say that unless you need a tiny camera take a look at some of the larger cameras in the same price range.

So would something like the Kodak or the sony be a better bet?

P.S. Incidentally, this is my 1000th post, huzzah!!!

The Kodaks are fine as long as you like their dumbed down UI and feature sets (personally the drive me mad). I will admit to a bias against Sony digital cameras, simply because they lock you into their memory sticks and then charge you twice as much as CF, XD etc

If we assume for the moment that you are going to spend up to £300, then the you can include a few Fujis, Nikons, Olympus etc:

http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/canon-a70-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/nikon-coolpix-4300-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/fuji-finepix-s304-digital-camera-deals.htm
http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/olympus-c50-zoom-digital-camera-deals.htm

If you forced me to pick one of these, I would probably go for the Canon A70. There is a review of if here

The canon looks cool, what do you think of the fuji?

If you're willing to spend 500 UKP (what, somewhere in the 800-900 USD range or so), you're in the range for much of the high end digital still cameras. I think it might be helpful if you could answer some questions that might help narrow down your choices.

- What's more important: small physical camera size or various features (more zoom, sharper lens, more megapixels, more adjustments, ability to use an external flash, etc.)

- Do you feel you might now, or ever, want to shoot in "raw" mode, or are you happy with JPEG output?

Once you've answered those questions, we can zoom in a little with some more details. Rank how important each of these features might be to you:

- Lithium-Ion battery pack (longer life, lighter weight)

- Compact flash support (= bigger/cheaper memory cards)

- Extreme closeup (macro) support

- Serious zoom distance

- Wide angle support

- Low latency from pressing the "on" button to being ready to shoot

- Burst rate (photos/second) vs. sustained rate (some new cameras can stream to fast memory cards)

- Water "resistance"

- Decent PC software

- Retracting lens with built-in cover

- Rotating/swiveling design (lets you see the screen even if you're shooting from odd angles)



Answer all those questions, and I'll bet we can nail down the right camera for you. There are hundreds of choices at a variety of price points...

The Fuji has a feature that you will either love or hate, an EVF (electronic view finder). So the view finder is a small LCD, like on a video camera.

This has the advantages that it gives you a 100% view of what the sensor is seeing (normally an optical view finder only shows you 80-90% of what the sensor sees). It also allows you to see exactly the colours and lighting that the sensor is going to record.

It has some downsides as well. The three most important are battery consumption, image quality and low light level performance. Obviously if there is no optical view finder you are always using either the EVF or the rear LCD, which lowers battery life. Image quality is and issue because the EVF only has 118,000 pixels or so (much like a video camera view finder). In low light EVFs can be a pain because the lower the light level the more time it takes to capture enough light for a decent picture so the refresh rate of the EVF falls.

I have never used an EVF and I don't think I would get on with it, but some people love them.

Looking at this review (the S304 is called the 3800 in the US):

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/fuji_3800.html

It looks like the Fuji might actually be a little behind the times in its feature set and UI.

We have a Nikon CoolPix 995 at work which I quite like. A friend of mines dad has bought a D10 (or is it a 10D?) and has given his old fuji (which looks very similar to the one mentioned) to him. I've had a go with it, including the EVF, which I didn't mind all that much. I'm not really a serious photographer, and probably will never be. All I really want is a half-decent camera to take a few pictures with. Something like the Canon or the Fuji would probably suit me fine.