A first purchase

[tim131]

Hi all, I'm new

So basically, I've never owned a proper camera, and feel its time I should get one, as I've always wanted one, and there have been so many times when I was out and said to myself "damn, thats a beautiful scene I wish I had a camera"

So I was looking at this camera here - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku...ed#ProductTabs I was thinking of it because, it has relatively high optical zoom and pixels, as well s HD recording!

Now I would be using this camera lot in concerts and gigs (eg. dimly lit or dark areas) I understand this is where ISO comes into it, but for the life of me I have know idea about it, would this camera be suitable for taking gig photos?

If not what camera would you reccomend for me, for say around €300 preferably less!

Any help you can give would be fantastic

Many thanks,

Tim

[byjamesderuvoDHQ]

If you're going to be using it in low light situations, you want to be cautious of falling into the "more MP is better myth." It isn't. I came across an interesting article today about how more mega pixels is not necessarily a good thing. According to Image Engineering – a company that does testing of digital cameras for photo magazines in Germany – the quality of digital pictures has steadily decreased since the state of the art was six megapixels back in 2004. And because they don’t have a “dog in this hunt,” they put forth a compelling argument for buying new digital cameras with less mega pixels and not more.

The argument is essentially this: CCD chips on point and shoot cameras a smaller and as such, fitting in more pixels without a corresponding increase of chip size, causes them to lose light sensivity. Sure, there’s more data on the chip, but the chip can’t absorb the light data and what it ends up with is a picture that has more noise than image quality. In addition, the more megapixels a camera has, the larger the lens it needs to provide the clarity it deserves and prevent diffraction due to a loss of detail with smaller apertures. But since we’re talking portable point and shoots here, those large lenses simply aren’t being made.

Finally, with larger mega pixels comes longer saving time due to their requires huge storage capacity, or more compression if not storing images in RAW format. The result is a noisier image and a dissatisfied camera user who thirsts for high quality and speed but fell into the trap of "more must mean better."

In the end, relying on a smaller MP that can balance all these needs may indeed be a better answer.

[Anbesol]

All good points. To be honest, if I was getting another point and shoot I would look at many of 2003-2006's models - particularly the "prosumer" digicams. The Sony DSC-R1 was manufactured 2005, and still yet to be beaten by any digicam - its still got a huge quality advantage, Fuji's S9000 performs wonderfully, Minolta's A200 or A2, nothing that has been produced since has anything on those old gems. And when you say "proper camera", the last thing I imagine that to mean is one that has electronic zooming, 'proper camera' means manual zoom ring to me, but that might just be my camera perfectionism neurosis playing there.

Of course, all of that is irrelevant if you are wanting a pocket point and shoot. Canon's G series are one of the few with great features and quality in and out and still somewhat pocket sized. And in my personal opinion, those panasonics are decent - but their build quality is pathetic, that knob on top feels like it came from a 25cent machine.