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Indie article - October 2004: Feature on sub £100 digital cameras by Paul Smith - SNAP HAPPY CHAPPY.
I’ve only been writing for Indie for seven years and here’s my first proper feature for them already. Woo!
Regular readers will know I’ve been banging my drum about digital cameras for quite some time but I really do think this Christmas season is when they come of age. Why? Because for the first time really rather good models are available below the critical £100 retail price point. To help you home in on the best products to stock I’ve been out and about looking at cameras as well as checking web sites such as the highly respected dpreview.com and imaging-resource.com.
I’ve decided to avoid the real budget end of cameras - what I think of as key rings that happen to take photos. Having bought a 0.3mp camera back in 1999 I can confirm they’re not a practical tool for photography, even for pictures you only want to e-mail. Cracking on with a roundup then, in no particular order:
Having owned several Fujifilm digicams I’ve always found they give a great picture without fuss. Simple menus and rugged construction coupled with bright, high contrast output make them my personal manufacturer of choice. There’s the A202 that replaced the A201 I own quite a while ago and has very similar features. 2.1mp CCD captures 1.92mp photos which will blow up to 7x5” and still look good. Like most of the cameras in this price-range it has an optical viewfinder as well as a small LCD screen. It’s particularly lightweight at 180g with batteries and boasts a basic movie mode without sound. In fact, the key change is from the A201’s ‘old’ SmartMedia cards to xD media. The advantage of a fixed-focus camera liked this is shooting-time. Click-it’s on. Click-you’ve taken a picture. No mucking about with the traditional shutter-lag of auto-focus digitals makes these more basic cameras great for capturing action, but only in bright outdoors conditions.
The very similar looking A403 uses the octagonal-element Super-CCD that appears in Fujifilm’s fancier offerings. It gives a very sharp 4mp output, which makes the 2.7x digital zoom well worthwhile. Again, a rather basic model which manages to do a decent job of shooting in most light conditions. Its multi-mode flash is good, allowing you to force it on, off, anti-red eye, leave it on automatic or have a longish exposure with flash; Great for photographing people against a dark background without losing detail.
The Camedia (sounds like an STD to me) C160 from Olympus is quite a chunky model that feels very solid in the same way a brick does. There’s no optical zoom but the 3.1mp res. supports 2.5x digital zoom and all of seven buttons make this a real idiot resistant (not proof!) product. I like cameras with a slide-back lens cover like this one because it not only protects the lens from damage and can’t swing annoyingly into shot but they’re the on/off-switch too.
In common with a few of these ‘cheap’ cameras, the Canon A60 has been officially discontinued but there are still lots around. It’s a 2mp beastie but it looks very classy for the money and has a useful 3x optical and 7.5x combined optical & digital zoom. It’s the only camera I found in this price range that will shoot video with sound. On the downside it’s rather heavy at 315g all up. One for only the most re-enforced of pockets.
The Nikon 2200 is a fine looking little silver thing. A 2.1mp CCD giving 1.92mp (1600x1200) output is an ok start but what sets this camera apart is its controls which were so simple even I seemed to know what to do with it without so much as a sniff of the handbook. The camera feels lightweight (190g with 2xAA batteries fitted) but not cheap or fragile. The 3x zoom, on the other hand, sounds like an angry wasp in a helium-filled tin can when operated. Like the other cameras featured here there’s no manual focus option, but the auto seemed fast and accurate, even in poor light. Optical viewfinder and a clear 1.6” screen make this a sensible camera for most situations. There’s a tripod mount and lots of options you’d expect to find on a more advanced model, as well as 14.5Mb (curiously) of internal memory. Beyond that there’s a slot for the ubiquitous SD card.
I’d like to include a camera from Sony in this selection but I couldn’t find one. Typically the budget end of the market isn’t where they see their brand sitting, I guess.
The EOL Kodak CX6200 is another bold lump of a camera but feels one of the best put together I played with. This one’s main claim to fame is it’s very rapid start-up and simple controls. Like all the others listed here it comes with a USB cable for data transfer, but unlike the others it’s easily dropped into a recharge and download cradle or the Kodak Print Dock. This makes printing 6x4” photos a piece of cake. However, the 3x digital-only zoom isn’t enough to save offering this from an ‘also-ran’ position.
Agfa discontinued their range of digital cameras a while ago but that doesn’t stop their products still popping up all over the place. The 2mp model I played with was called the Easy Pix SP2. Frankly I couldn’t stand to be in its presence very long. It was trying so hard to look the part with its smug brushed aluminium body but the pinprick sized lens more than hints at its basic guts. Strictly one for people who want to look good holding a sexy little camera. But only at a distance.
A rather nicer surprise came in the delicate, delightful shape of the Minolta Dimage X21. Only 2mp but with a very snazzy 3x optical zoom which operates inside the slim body of the camera and 4x digital zoom mean you can get very close to your subject. It’s also very fast starting, being ready to take a picture without flash in only about a second from hitting its on/off button. If you need the flash to fire, expect to have to wait two, perhaps three extra seconds. Another very attractive feature was the mobile-phone style menu navigation and in-camera digital effects, such as adding artistic borders to photos. For such a small, inexpensive camera it felt very well put together and the alloy body makes it quite the fashion accessory. I was rather tempted myself. Highly recommended!
My personal choice is still anything from Fujifilm but there’s never been more or better competition in the under £100 retail price bracket. There’s not a great deal to pick between these cameras in terms of features (except perhaps optical zoom, which does add a lot of flexibility - as well as fragility - to a basic digicam) so aesthetics have to play a major role in a budget shoppers decision. I’m saying stock a couple well-made, pretty cameras and you’ll not go far wrong this Christmas.