Buying a new camera...

I've manged to save up roughly £150 and i want to get myself a new digital camera, I've seen a few ones that i think are good value for money on ebay and was wondering if i could get a second opinion on this camera (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....m=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=+310050205987&fvi=1) its a Fujifilm FinePix S8000 which looks very good for the price with other 18x optical zoom can anyone see any potential let downs with this camera?


Thanks in advance:thumb:

PS: my brother has bought from the seller before so we know its not a scam account:rolleyes:

 

it looks like a good camera, the reviewers like it anyway. I've never used it and don't know anyone who has.

at dixons online, its £152.72 inc delivery but without the extra's the ebay one has. It will have a UK warranty though. If you sign up to quidco, you get 3% back and they are also advertising a £5 off voucher. you need to spend over £150 for the voucher to be valid and the postage doesn't count so you'll need to add something cheap to your order!!! even so, it should bring it down to about £145 inc delivery.

 

Looks a good camera with your budget.

 

Thanks just wanted to check i was getting a good buy :D

 

Looks a good buy K, similar to my Panasonic, although that is only 12x. These cameras are in between point and shoot cheapies and serious SLRs and are very good for what they can do and the price particularly when they come with a 2G card.

 

yer there's a Panasonic model which has the same specs as this for maybe £100.00 more which apparently is better but I'm not willing to part with that much money:D lol and i thought that the 2gig memory card thrown in was good as well but a friend told me that they are really really cheap now as he bought a 4gig sd card on play.com for £7.99:eek:

 

The only downside (in my opinion) is the limited manual control, particularly over zoom and focus and if you start getting half serious about your photography you'll start wishing you had more control.
I moved to the Fuji FinePix S9600 from a Nikon that was similar to the S8000 because I wanted finer control particularly over focus and zoom.
BTW - Beware that Ebay site, it's based in China and you could end up paying import tax and VAT. I very nearly bought my new Canon from them until I noticed where the site was based.
You ought to be able to find a good used digital camera of similar or better specification on Ebay.

Here's mine !
>
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....m=170221514486&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=007

 

I had my panasonic FZ8 from a U.K seller on ebay only £145. inc P&P
Brand new all boxed.
:thumb: I'm very pleased with it.

 

OK I'm now officially confuzzeld, i hate having choice! well if i tell everyone what I'm going to be using the camera for then someone might be able to recommend a camera more suitable to me although it would need to be within or just over the £150 mark and preferabley brand new.

I'm mainly going to be taking photo's of flowers and gardens and people lol i have almost no knowledge of photography

 

I know just how you feel. Every time I change my camera or computer I give myself major headaches looking at the options, reading reviews and comparing prices. It takes me weeks to decide.
Some suggestions -
Don't ever buy a newly released model during the first couple of months (I'm hypocritical here as I've just done it!) as the price will quickly fall significantly and any basic faults will be discovered by users and posted on web sites.
Be careful about buying on line as some companies sell grey imports that are not covered by UK or EU guarantees.
Some sellers on Ebay may appear to based in the UK but are in China. (Google for reviews of the retailers)
'Google' for reviews of cameras you think you might like (try dpreview and cameralabs)
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/FujifilmS8000fd/

Having just had a brief look at the above review you might care to look at Panasonic or Olympus reviews before you make up your mind.

Take a couple of asprin while you reflect on the fact that nothing depreciates faster than the bit of technology that you buy today and that in a year's time it will be worth half what you paid and the new model will be twice as 'good' for about the same price or less.

I've probably made things even more complicated for you, but my best advice is to take your time and read the reviews as these are objective evaluations rather than subjective ones.

 

After much consideration i have decided to purchase a Kodak Easyshare Z1275 although it is a bit of a step down from what i originally had set my eyes on, i managed to get it for a steal of a price at £69.99 from ebuyer.com which is pretty good. My reasoning for this is, whats the point of having an expensive camera if you cant afford to buy plants to photograph?


Thanks for everyone's help

 

Kalmia, you mentioned a 4gb card, although now you have a lesser camera than you were going to buy and probably wouldn't need one I just thought I would let folk know that it can't be used in some cameras. I doubt whether yours could, My Panasonic FZ7 can only go up to 2gb whereas Lyn's FZ8 can use the 4gb. The manual should give the card capacity.

 

you should only use lots of small cards and not one big one.

if a card corrupts you lose a lot of data on one big card, instead of a small amount on one card

 

well i chose a big card as it can record HD video which will take a lot of room up I've looked on the net and there doesn't appear to be a size limit on the official website