Which camera?

[sorencam]

Im not an enthusiastic fotographer (plans on using my 5 MP camphone on casual occations) but would like a nice digital camera to use on holidays and special occations. The specs im looking for is:

- at least 8 MP
- zoom at least 10x
- nice pictures (im not going to make posters or anything and im not overly sensitive).
- Powerful blitz (would be nice if it was adjustable since I have heard blitz under wrong conditions really can destroy the picture).
- stabilizing features
- easy to use (im not a moron but not professional either, so advanced features is not bad but it would be nice to be able to take quick beautiful pictures)
- pricerange 300 - 500 $

I have been looking into fuji´s finepix s8000fd but not sure whether this is the best choice for me. Maybe some olympus or panasonic cams would be better?

Could anyone please help.

[David Metsky]

What is blitz? Are you talking about a flash?

If you take a look in the Reviews & Info section you can see all the ultrazoom cameras on offer. All will meet your basic needs. Keep in mind that low light when you need to use flash are very difficult conditions for most cameras. Even with adjustable flash it's not easy to get great shots without a little bit of knowledge and effort.

The Fuji isn't a bad choice, but also look at the Canon S5 and the Panasonic FZ-50. Try them in the store to see which ones feel right in your hands.

[StefH]

- at least 8 MP
- zoom at least 10x
- nice pictures (im not going to make posters or anything and im not overly sensitive).
- Powerful blitz (would be nice if it was adjustable since I have heard blitz under wrong conditions really can destroy the picture).
- stabilizing features
I have been looking into fuji´s finepix s8000fd but not sure whether this is the best choice for me. Maybe some olympus or panasonic cams would be better?


(Why do you need 8 MP? The more pixels you put on a sensor the more image quality goes down. You said you don't want to make posters. Did you know that 2MP is absolutely enough for 10cmx15cm pictures?)

More important than "10x zoom" is the range you want. Most cameras start at 35 or even 38 mm (equiv.). The problem is you often won't get everything you want on your photo: When taking photos indoors, you might have problems getting everybody on the photo you want to. Outside you might have problems getting a building or a landscape completely on your picture. The difference between 28mm and 38mm is more important than the difference between 200mm and 300mm!!! Or do you want to go out and take pictures of shy animals in the nature. Then you would really need a tele. But taking pictures like that is very, very difficult.

Well, "nice pictures" what is that? very colourful and sharpened? That's what most P&S cams do, although you could get better results by having a camera that does not sharpen and push the colours and you do the enhancements yourself.
But the quality of a picture is perhaps 5% the camera and 95% the photographer. Buying a good book about photography will improve your picture quality more, than buying a 2000$ DSLR.

Powerful flash: The best would be to use an external flash, but most compact cams do not have a hot-shoe. There would be Panasonic FZ-50, Canon G9 or Fuji S9100/9600 who have this feature, but especially the Fuji is perhaps not as simple to handle, as you want it.
Sony H-9 has a powerful bulit-in flash which is said to be very good. It goes to about 10m (other cameras perhaps 3-4m)

stabilization is a nice feature, but it does help only in certain conditions. I wouldn't make it an absolute need-to-have.

You said, you don't want to go into photography to deeply, but if you invest a little bit of time in learning about photography, you can improve you picture quality a lot.

You can take good photos with every camera on the market from a known brand. Think a bit about what I said about the zoom range. What do you really need there. Perhaps this helps with your decision

You used the word blitz for flash, so I think you might be german. For Fuji S8000 information have a look at http://www.fujifilm-digital.de/forum. On general information about cameras: http://www.dslr-forum.de/ --> Kompaktkameras