Help choosing new digital camera

It's time for me to upgrade my Fuji FinePix S7000, but I'm not really a camera expert, so need help.

I don't need a professional camera as it's only for my personal use, but the following features are what I'm looking for:

• Macro function for closeup photos.
• A proper lens that can actually zoom without blurring the photos or reducing the quality too much.
• Decent quality video recording.
• Compact size if possible.
• Geotagging function if affordable.

I looked at the new Nikon 1 V1, but it's very expensive in my opinion and if you buy all the lenses it's too much money. Also you have to buy a geotagging module separately costing even more money: www.nikonusa.com/Nikon-Products/Product/...7504/Nikon-1-V1.html

I use Apple Aperture for organizing my photos and the geotagging ability is a feature I really enjoy when taking pics with the iPhone, however quality is still not good enough and I want a proper digital camera.

I still have to calculate a spending budget, but if I can get away with under R12k for a good camera and all accessories I will be happy.

Any ideas about camera makes/models that will suite my needs?

my dad has a very cool camera admin, he has all the accesories, attachable lenses etc. he never uses it. ill ask him about all the specs tonight and ill let you know what he wants for it. im pretty sure its a Nikon

rvp01 wrote: my dad has a very cool camera admin, he has all the accesories, attachable lenses etc. he never uses it. ill ask him about all the specs tonight and ill let you know what he wants for it. im pretty sure its a Nikon

That would be fantastic. Please send me the model number if he is interested in selling it.

will do. ill give you all the info on this thread this evening some time

im a canon guy.

atm they are the best there are better ones like the haselblad but way out of my prise range.

for what you are looking for there are a few options. you can import for very cheap admin.

go to www.bhphotovideo.com they are way cheaper that sa and can import for a very low price

Thanks gab, I'm open to any good brand of camera. Going to have a look now.

there is also a store in montana mall. if you go by the deon wired store entrance on the second floor allmost in the middle of the mall there is a shop that is good priced on theur stuff

I've just realized that I'm completely overwhelmed with all the options, so I think a good place to start will be with more research on what all those technical terms actually mean.

he he he

Ok, so after confusing myself with all the options I decided to read an article that help with choosing the right camera for one's needs and one of the points the author made was that no single camera will be able to fulfill all your requirements and it's better to choose one that is best suited to your everyday lifestyle even if you have to make some tradeoffs with some features.

So I went through my collection of photos on Aperture and the first thing that struck me is that just about all my photos are outdoors and nature photos. I have almost no photos taken indoors other than the photos of my daughter when she was a baby... all the recent photos of her is outside as well.

Next thing the article said you should think about is all the things you didn't like about your previous camera:
1: First is the bulkiness when I go hiking, because the backpack I use has a build-in water bottle and there is not much space left for a massive camera as I need space for food, flashlight, GPS, knife and toilet paper . You can't carry it around your neck either, because it bounces around and becomes very annoying after a few minutes.
2: Second thing that I don't like about the finepix is the time and effort to open the lens cover and waiting for the thing to turn on.
3: Third thing is that you have to carry around a waterproof bag whenever canoeing.
4: Forth issue is the poor photo quality in low light conditions.
5: You also don't have geotagging, so after a few years you tend to forget where the photo was taken. I also photograph allot of snakes and other reptiles and it's very useful to know exactly where you found them.

After some searching and comparing of different models I decided the best camera is the newly released Olympus TG-1 tough camera. It is drop proof up to 2m, it's water proof up to 12m deep, it's dust proof, crush proof unto 100kg and freeze proof.
1: It's also small and compact, so will be easy to carry around.
2: You can take a photo in less than 2 seconds.
3: It's waterproof so no worry when going swimming and you can also take photos or video when diving.
4: It uses a F2.0 aperture, so low light photos are possible. HD videos are also possible.
5: It has a build-in GPS that only need 45 seconds to logon to a signal on initial startup. The GPS also logs your exact trail, so you can see in Google earth where you went.

There are some drawbacks and the most apparent is the reduced photo quality of tough cameras, however it's still an improvement over my current one. Optical zoom is only x4, but I preordered the teleconverter lens that takes it up to x7, that's more than I have now anyway.

I bought the Olympus TG-1 camera, 32Gb 95mb/s SD card, teleconverter lens and lens adapter for R5900 including shipping. I bough it yesterday from the place gab suggested above ( www.bhphotovideo.com ) and they already shipped the camera and SD card. The lens and adapter is on preorder and they will ship that once they receive the stock from Olympus.

nice camera bro:) happy photographing.

very sick camera

i think i need a camera like that to for my fishing trips waterproof and all:)

WOW admin, awesome camera and good price, I see wantitall sells them for around R 6,344.00 and that without the adapter, teleconverter lens and 32GB SD card or R5,472.98 from have2have but then they still need to source it from USA and add all the extras. Nice find, sure that camera will make your hiking trips a breeze in comparison with your Fujifilm.

The camera arrived today and I'm very pleased. It's easy to use, but still provide enough settings for some extra "freedom".

The SD Card is the very fast SanDisk Extreme Pro 32Gb with write speeds of 90MB/s.

The photo quality is much better than my old Fujifilm camera although not as good as new DSLR camera's though. For my needs I don't think there is anything better at the moment.

Selling the old one?

vega5 wrote: Selling the old one?

Already gave it to my parents, sorry bud.

admin wrote:

vega5 wrote: Selling the old one?

Already gave it to my parents, sorry bud.

No worries bud! I'm not big into photography but need to upgrade from my basic digital camera at some stage.

These normal point and shoot cameras are actually pretty good these days. Before you buy just read a couple of online reviews, because it's easy to become overwhelmed with all the numbers and specs. The lens is far more important than the number of pixels is something I learned.

admin wrote: These normal point and shoot cameras are actually pretty good these days. Before you buy just read a couple of online reviews, because it's easy to become overwhelmed with all the numbers and specs. The lens is far more important than the number of pixels is something I learned.

@admin 100% hence the reason the iPhone took better pics than the Xperia X10 which it's 8mp Camera, but the Xperia S takes better pictures than the iPhone + the Galaxy S3. It all comes down to the lense. I have a Camera at home that is 4mp, but man, can this Camera take pic's it was the shizniz when I purchased it, the snap photos, like when one of my friends are surfing and I use the burst effect, each picture is crisp and clean.

Nokia is going to release a 41 megapixel camera phone, but I'm sure a 6 megapixel DSLR will take much sharper photos.

This 41 megapixel phone camera will merge 7 pixels onto 1 to make up for lack of image sharpness. My personal opinion is that the less image "cleanup" or image "enhancement" required by the device's software the better. Once you have software on the camera or phone that try and improve everything all the time you can be sure that photos will not look as "crisp" as they should.

Software that retouch photos on point and shoot cameras and phone cameras are unfortunately still essential, but hopefully technology will soon allow these small lenses and sensors to be able to perform well without intervention from software.


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Admin I bought me Nikon d3100 just the other day and the thing is insane! Just letting you know if you havent already bought a new one.

The only kak is the lense I have is 18-55mm so you cant really zoom all that much.

The Nikon D3100 is insane and I see the D3200 is about to come out if it hasn't already. I opted for a much more normal Olympus TG-1 because I can't really take a DSLR with me on my adventures as it's too big and fragile.

If you decide to upgrade to the new D3200 I will gladly buy your D3100 if you are interested though.

Just got it monday maybe in the next year hey... :lol:

Have you decided to buy anything yet admin?

The olympus is great if your into outdoorsy stuff like divig,hiking etc.

Yes, I already bought that Olympus TG-1. Received it yesterday. I'm just waiting for the Tele-conversion lens because that is on pre-order and they expect them to be released in a couple of weeks.