Key Post: Digital cameras

Would anyone be able to recommend a good camera shop in Dublin, or a good website where you can buy digital cameras? I am looking for a Canon Powershot S330.

US website

If prepared to go through the hassle of ordering from the US there are serious savings to be made on this site.

www.buydig.com

I was in the states recently so was able to get the camera delivered to the office I was working in. It suited me but may not be good for you.

Digital Cameras are way overpriced here.

digital cameras

Do the camera's bought in the US work with our pc's?

digital cameras

and with our electricity?

no worries

digi cameras from the states (or elsewhere) work just fine here. The only issues are the plug for the battery charger (which usually requires a plug adaptor, not a transformer), and the warranty, which will probably be limited to the US (or wherever). You will also run the risk of having to pay import duty, but even so it often works out cheaper.

I bought a Canon S40 a few weeks ago (when the dollar fell below the euro) for $430. The same camera costs €999 in Dublin. Bizzare price differential between the US and europe on these things.

Digital cameras

Thanks for the recommendations. I also found this UK site.
[broken link removed]
Even with exchange differences it works out a bit cheaper than buying here. They deliver within two days and charge about £10 for delivery which isn't bad.

Re: Digital cameras

Make sure they deliver to Rep.of.Ireland. I bought a camera recently but they couldn't send it to me directly as they said I didn't have a post code and they had problems in the past with deliveries and insurance. (As it happened someone was visiting me from the UK at the time so I had the comapny post it to them and they brought it over with them)

Re: Digital cameras

InternetCamerasDirect are ok with Irish deliveries. I bought a camera from them last year. They were quite a bit cheaper than other UK-based websites, and massively cheaper than any Irish shop I found. They also throw in quite a few extras for free or a small extra charge, e.g. an extra memory card, or batteries & charger.

Mind you, digital cameras is a very rapidly moving are at the moment and stuff is getting cheaper by the day. The camera I bought last year is now cheaper and quickly becoming out-of-date.

the above

I found InternetCamerasDirect not to be the cheapest in the past. Search using google.co.uk. Buying from America may attract duty on this side. Postage from America is fantastically expensive and you may get hit on this side for both duty and extra postage. It happened to me when I bought small computer speakers and had them delivered to the North. It cost me more than double their original price by the time I got it. Many US sites will not deliver the Republic.

Digital cameras are well worth the money even thought they are dear and halve in price each year. I have owned an Epson (crap) and a Canon Ixus (good). Get a small one because then you can keep it in your pocket and snap till the cows come home. Make sure it uses compact flash (the cheapest memory) and note type 1 (common) is different than type 2. Buy 256mb from the UK but do not get camera (cannon) brand stuff - it costs 10 times the price.
Note printer ink and proper paper is very very expensive and you will probably end keeping your pictures on hard disk where they look better anyway. You can record pictures to cd (vcd) and play them on standalone dvd players like a sort of album movie.
You probably know this but ignore digital zoom as its worse than worthless. Only optical zoom counts.

Additional Memory

Can I also suggest you look at ebay for buying memory (from the US).
I have a Sony digital camera using memory sticks. I have bought all my additional memory this way at a price of about 1/3 to 1/2 of the Irish price, including postage.

They are ideal mail-order purchases, as they are small and light. Speed is often very fast too - once I ordered on Friday, and had the memory in the post the following Tuesday.

The usual provisos about being careful who you buy from etc. apply.

Re: Digital cameras

A couple of other considerations;

Watch out for 'shutter lag' - this is the time taken between pressing the button and the picture actually being taken. This is usually between 0.25 to 1 second, depending on how fast the auto-focus works. This isn't a problem if most of your shots will be 'posed' - it just means your targets have to hold their cheesy grins for a second longer. However, it means taking action shots very difficult as the action may well have moved on by the time the picture has been taken. There is really no way round this without going for an expensive SLR camera. However, the shutter speeds vary for different camera's, so check the specs & independent reviews for more details.

Some of the newer SLR digital cameras (e.g. Fuji Finepic 2800) have an electronic viewfinder. This means that when you look through the viewfinder, you're looking at a small LCD screen, rather than looking through a normal camera lens. This has a disadvantage of being slower to react than a camera lens, and this put me off the Fuji. However, it has the advantage of showing you a more accurate image of what's going to be in your final picture.

For detailed reviews of individual models, check out

www.imaging-resource.com/


For reviews & discussion board, try

www.dpreview.com

Don't bother asking the counter staff any serious questions - Spend an hour or two surfing and you'll know more than they will!

digital camera

I recently bought a sony camera P51 from amazon. co.uk and saved over 150 euro. The camera was here in 3 days. I found most of the american sites would not post the camera here, or charged exorbitantly for it.

Digi Camera

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Re: Digi Camera

What I find a bit confusing is the accessories.
There seems to be 3 different kinds of memory:
CompactFlash cards,
SmartMedia cards,
Memory Sticks.
Is there a big difference between these and do they require you to buy memory card readers in order to use them?

Also for the rechargeable batteries.
Are they like mobile phone batteries that can be recharged while still in the device or are they like AA rechargeable batteries that require a separate charging device?

The camera I'm interetesd in is the Sony DSC-P51 from UK Amazon for 300 Euros which is about 100 Euros cheaper than in the Sony Centres here.

Re: Digi Camera

Is there a big difference between ... 3 different kinds of memory:

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Not really - I think Memory Sticks are specific to Sony only, the other two are generic.

do they require you to buy memory card readers in order to use them?

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You need either a card reader (about €50 for SmartMedia or CompactFlash reader) or you need a USB connection on your camera - with the latter, you need to ensure that you have a power adaptor for your camera too, otherwise you're likely to use up a pile of batteries while downloading.

Are they like mobile phone batteries that can be recharged while still in the device or are they like AA rechargeable batteries that require a separate charging device?

Click to expand...

I think it varies between different models/brands. Just don't expect to run it on non-rechargeable AA batteries - These thinks soak up power, so rechargeables are essential.

Brilliant value - The Blink Digital camera

Not sure what you need it for but if you don't really need a top of the range consider this

[broken link removed]

A colleague bought one this week and since then lots of other have been trying (with limited success) to gte their hands on one. For €65 it is brilliant value - holds 400 images, can be used as a webcam, free & easy to use software etc. etc

Check it out before you buy.....

MAC

me want one

MAC, you say colleagues have been able to pick these up with limited success, are they available in Ireland??

Must say it looks a delightful little bit of kit...

Blink miniture digital cameras

Hi Paulie,

Eventually we got some in Power City but ring first - our local only had a few left.

Good luck

MAC

Otherwise you can order from the US or Uk one the web no problem - Think I saw them for US$ 35 on one site. If you have a problem post back and I'll the the URL

Re: Digital cameras

No optical zoom and just 2xdigital zoom! Is it really worth paying for something without decent zoom facilities?

digicam

Was thinking of getting one for xmas some suggested a Hewlett Packard320 anyone got any views on this model as I know nothing about any of them.