Desperate For A Decent Camera!

[Tayl]

Hey all!

When at school (back in the day) I studied photography and absolutely adored it. Now I'm older and wiser I still find myself, when on holiday, snapping photos like I'm Ansel Adams of the most unimportant things. However, I really want a decent digital camera now. I recently bought a basic digital camera for around about £150 and it's just made me want to invest more money in a proper professional one. Nowdays I have no idea when it comes to cameras. back when I was heavily into photography I used manual configuration film cameras.

What I want from it is:

Good zoom capabilities
Good quality pictures
External storage capabilities (SD Card etc etc)
Multiple shot abilities (so if I want to take a photo of a rock and hold down the shoot button it'll fire out taking multiple shots/pictures rapidly
- Not the standard 'click', wait 10 seconds for the picture to store and show, 'click'.

If you can recommend a decent lens too that'd be great.

I want to keep the price affordable but realize for decent equipment you need to invest a bit of money (anything around £500 give or take a hundred would be fine).

Regards,

Tayl.

[justinjavellana]

Do you want a DSLR or a high end point and shoot? You'll definitely get great image quality from a DSLR.

Canon's 1100D (Rebel T3 in the US) is a good entry level DSLR, plus you can shoot video with it as well.
http://bit.ly/rryre2

You said you want good zoom capabilities, that is dependent on the lens. The 15-85mm covers more range than the typical standard zoom lens while offering excellent image quality.
http://bit.ly/oSFuFf

The superzoom lenses like the 18-200mm give you versatility, but lack in terms of image quality.
http://bit.ly/oTNZMT


But if you want a high-end point and shoot. The Canon Powershot SX30IS is what I recommend. I'm interested in one as well. I don't know if I can call it a point and shoot because it's a bit bigger than one.
http://bit.ly/qLvgUs

hth

[Fatback]

I guess it would depend on your budget. You can pick up an older DSLR like a Sony A100/200, Canon Rebel, Pentax K100/110D and a few others for around $200-300. I personally prefer Sony because I can buy old Minolta lenses cheap off ebay. Which is good for a photographer on a budget. If you want a SLR-Like then look at the Panasonic Lumix series. I have had a DMC-FZ8, and FZ18, and loved them both. Picking a camera takes time though, don't just buy one. Do a lot of research on it, try to see if you can find one, and hold it in you hands to get the feel.

[Krono cam]

I was gonna say the fujifilm finepix s3200, which has everything that you listed, but at a budget of $500 or more, you might as well get something better.