Camera experts

[Walkingthedog]

How much do you want to spend. Your exotic/pricey might not be the same as my exotic/pricey.

[Steve M]

Tony the thing you have to watch for is the number of phots the camera has already taken. A bit obvious maybe, but the more it has taken the closer it will be to needing a full clean and service - can be expensive. Even these days there are many mechanical parts in a camera that can wear out.

Older lenses can suffer from mould growing on the inside surfaces and of course, as it’s an SLR there could be dust on the mirror or sensor that would require a professional clean up.

[Steve M]

I noticed the shutter count on the ebay camera 15k plus ........

I dread to think what mine have done, but I have over 300k stored on various hard drives.

[Eric-B]

Have a look at the Fuji Finepix S9900W - runs on four x AA cells, so no problems if you run flat.
50 x zoom from macro to a heck of a long way! Single, or multi-shot, and video with sound. 16 Megapixels, which is plenty for normal use. Built-in flash, switched back screen or eyepiece viewfinder.

[Steve M]

Personally I would shy away from cameras that use standard AA batteries - in my experience they eat batteries and only the very best and therefore expensive branded batteries will suffice.
Be wary also of zoom ranges - many of the extreme lengths are a result of electronic zooming resulting in excessive pixelation and poor image quality.

[Eric-B]

I use rechargeables - no problem with those.
The Fuji I mentioned - that is just the optical zoom. there is also a digital that makes it go to silly ranges that you'd need a solid tripod and a flat calm to get sensible stability from.
It all depends on what you want the camera to do, of course.

[Steve M]

That’s very true Eric. Nearly 20 years ago I got some fantastic images on a very early Sony digital compact, now I alternate between a couple of Canon SLRs (5D & 7D) and my phone.

[Walkingthedog]

I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ330 bridge camera with a Leica lens. Very pleased with it.

[Steve M]

The LUMIX Range is very good indeed.

[Walkingthedog]

Wish I’d got one a few years ago.