Casio Exilim digital camera

[HardRockCamaro]

I'm selling my Casio Exilim compact cameras I no longer use it having dropped big money on an SLR and being stubborn enough to drag said SLR everywhere with me...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESCX:IT&item=230344103538\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Casio Exilim on EBay


I love the little Casio and kept it even after buying the SLR, but the truth is I never use it so it may as well go to a new home...

[F Body]

Jeeze must be £89 worth of information, photos & video's on that advert

I still use my Exilim even though the screen has broken

[HardRockCamaro]

Well you need a new one clearly...

[Gator]

dont encourage him Andy

[ianjpage]

holy information overload batman!!

[HardRockCamaro]

I always load my ebay ads up with pics and info.



Seems to help get the best price compared to when I watch competing products that have been advertised in a half-arsed way...

[Roadkill]

Hmm . . . .

I've been tempted to upgrade my 4.0MP Exilim.

Trouble is there's nothing at all wrong with my current one.

T'is a reasonable upgrade . . . . But I had promised myself an SLR next year . . . .

[Big Mouse]

Stick with the compact - SLRs are the camera version of a heroin addiction!

[Roadkill]

Quoting: Big Mouse

SLRs are the camera version of a heroin addiction!

I can imagine - but I really want to start "getting into" pictures.

I reckon I've got a good eye for a shot but am now only limited by my camera - hence the desire for an SLR . . .

[HardRockCamaro]

If you really want to get into photography an SLR is the only way to go.

But it is *very* expensive.  In itself an SLR doesn't really improve your photos, you simply get less noise in your pictures due to the larger sensor, plus you don't get shutter delay and faster auto focus.  That's about it really.

The secret of eye caching shots, assuming you already have a grasp of composition etc (which you can learn just the same with a compact) is in the lenses.

If you want that very blurry background effect you need a fast, expensive zoom or prime lens, which means spending at least £300, or about £900 - !,200 to do it properly.  And that's just one lens.  To really do it properly you'd want the 200mm f2 lens which is over £3,000.

Or for impressive wide angle shows you need an ultra wide lens, these start at about £450 and go up.

If you're not shooting under ideal lighting you'll want a proper flashgun, these are about £200 - £300.

So the camera body, typically between £300 and £1,000 unless you're buying pro gear, is only a small part of it.


If you intend to stick with it and already have a grasp of composition etc, then get an SLR.  There is no substitute.  But be prepared to splash out big time.
If you're not that hot on composition and so on, then you can start off with a compact that has full manual override controls (althoguh they are fiddly), like mine!  ;)

[FUBAR]

Hmm...

[Gator]

thats about it i have found i am using compacts a lot and getting great results and i like the freedom of not having loads of kit

that said i do mostly landscapy outdoors stuff which compacts can do fine but  anything else its SLR time

[HardRockCamaro]

Yeah it gets bulky.

Plus I think I've spent over £2,500 already, and that's a s/hand camera with one second hand lens, 2 new ones, and an ex display flash gun...  Well, and all the little accessories too that soon mount up...

And I'm still not happy and could do with another 3 or 4 lenses and say 2 more flash guns...

[Roadkill]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

you can start off with a compact that has full manual override controls

Do they actually make compacts with manual overides, then ?



I love my compact but find that it sometimes looses some of the colour richness when taking scenery shots.

I took some good shots on the beach in cornwall but was a little disappointed as it just wasn't as vivid as I thought it should be.

Obviously the compact lack a little in zoom and I'd like to be able to manually focus sometimes, too . . .

[Gator]

they do mate my one does and sarahs point n shoot has manual on it, images generally look better slightly underexposed from camera meters imo so manual is a must

[HardRockCamaro]

They do yes, but they can be fiddly, especially focussing.

The Exilim does have manual overrides.

To boost the colour saturation there is normally a setting in a menu somewhere that tells the camera to do so (it might be labelled as "vivd" for example).  There is on the Casio, I always left it cranked all the way up.  When you choose certain "Scene" modes like "portrait" it would turn that off, whereas if you selected "sunset" it would turn it back on and add a little red into the mix to warm the picture up a bit, like an SLR user would with a filter.

The only problem with compacts is that even if they have these options, they are normally buried in a menu (as they are on entry level SLR's actually) which is annoying if you switch settings a lot.  The Casio has a button on the side (labelled EX) that when you push it, you get direct access to all the common settings you might want to change, but even that wasn't enough for me in the end.

I wanted direct access buttons for these things but that meant stepping up the SLR range by several hundred pounds.  This is the sort of thing you gain by buying a higher end SLR vs an entry level one.  The picture quality is generally the same, you just get a load of buttons to get to stuff quickly as for a pro, time is money.

[FUBAR]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

as for a pro Pap, time is money

[HardRockCamaro]

Sold on Buy It Now.  

[FUBAR]

Fair doos

Shame... as I was thinking of bidding on that...

[HardRockCamaro]

If it's any consolation there were a lot of watchers.
Based on what I see in the shops to get a metal bodied compact plus 4GB card, case etc I kinda expected it to go for about £80 in open auction.  I assume the person who bought it spotted the value and figured they'd "Buy it now" before someone put in an opening bid and took that option away.  Sometimes its easier to do that than risk losing out on it for the sake of your max bid being £1 lower than the winners etc...


I dunno...

Anyway, they got a fab camera at a fair price imho.

[FUBAR]

Indeed

[Flip Martian]

I've had a digital SLR for a few years now and, apart from buying a decent quality zoom to cover the 70-300mm range, made do with the 18-70 mm lens that came with the camera (a Nikon D70).

You CAN spend thousands on new lenses and whatnot. But I can't see the point unless you're exhibiting/selling prints to help pay for it all - I've seen plenty on forums though that spend more time drooling over the latest lens to come out than they do on taking photos.

Decent kit won't make you a good photographer - but an SLR will certainly help you develop (haha!) as a photographer. Just remember you don't need to spend thousands straight away. When you reach a decent standard, if you find yourself limited by the equipment you have, by all means start buying things like prime lenses, if you have the dosh.

But its important to remember you can manage very well with a couple of decent quality zooms covering different ranges and a flash.

[HardRockCamaro]

Agreed, people spend too much time worrying about the camera, the noise levels at high ISO and so on but the bottom line is that what matters is the picture, not the gear.

I do have a thing at the moment for night shots taken with very fast glass, giving awesome bokeh, perfectly round, giant circles of our of focus light in the background.  You just cant do that without the appropriate lens.  Which in this case costs over £3,000 (Nikkor 200mm f2) so I won't be creating any such images any time soon...

[Fieldy]

Andy -

O.T but I have a wedding dress, brand new to sell.... could you do my EBay ad for me, yours rocks!!

[HardRockCamaro]

LOL!

Grab a copy of Garage Sale off Dan!

That's what I use to do all my ebay ads.