I'm thinking of getting a digital camera in the near future (if Anna lets me!). It should prove useful as far as running this site goes and should mean that you all get to see more photos of some of the Forces-of-Nature regulars in action!

I've been looking at the HP Photosmart 850 which has a really good zoom for the price and a good 4m megapixel resolution too.. Along with some average exposure control modes.

Has anyone used one? I've read that the shutter lag can be pretty long, but is it any worse than other similarly priced digi cams??

Whats everyone else using for 'action shots' of surfers etc.??

Al.

I don't know the HP camera but that optical zoom looks good (ignore all digital zooms), I'm not sure the HP was available when I got mine, I went for the Fuji s602z and I have to say it's fantastic, it'll work a treat as just a point and shoot camera and will do that in sequence mode, i.e. 5 shots in a row and the mrs has taken some good action shots with it, and hopefully will be taking a lot more.

It also has all option for setting everything manually as well if your a little more artistic, plus it takes compact flash, smart media and microdrives if you want heaps of storage, hmm do I sound like a salesman or what ?

anyway the 2 sites below do reviews of all the cameras and the scond one has an excellent forum too, I used those a lot to help with my decision.

good luck, and happy shopping

www.steves-digicams.com

www.dpreview.com

Grrr....

Argos were advertising the Minolta Dimage 7i for £449 (reduced from £899)....but they are out of stock... Now theres a surprise.

Al.

So did you get a digital camera yet ?

I picked up a telephoto adapter for my fuji at the weekend which ups my zoom to 9x (315mm), now all I need is sunshine and wind at the weekend to try it out

I haven't got one yet...After seeing the Minolta Dimage 7i at Argos I sort of set my heart on a camera of that quality, but they are around £800 really. I've alos been told that having heating of some sort in our house is more important than a digital camera!!!

I'll get one one day though.

Let us see some of the results from your new 'super-telephoto' abilities though.

Al.


Ooops...I posted that logged in as justanna. My computer is broken again so I'm using hers.... Grrrr.

well here is the example of the zoom, apologies for lack of quality it is cold and grey here, hope your computer is working again soon
1st pic, no zoom
2nd pic, 6x optical
3rd pic, with 1.5x telephoto, 9x optical equvilant

now I just need to get some windsurfing pic's taken.....

well finally here are some windsurfing pics from the digital camera to show off the new lense, these are big files 2.3Mb each so beware if you click. they are just as they come out of the camera.
standard 6x zoom

with 1.5x telephoto adapter

another with the adapter]

and another

all of these were taken from inside the car on the car park through the front windscreen.
The edge of the sea was about 200m from the car and I was obviously sailing beyond that.



[Edited on 3-2-2003 by paul]