Back in 2000 I thought I was the bee's knees on my way to Amsterdam with my girlfriend (now wife). From Glasgow we stayed over night at a travel inn beside the London Eye before carrying on our journey aboard the Eurostar to Brussels and then on to Amsterdam for a few days break. At the time I was an IT contractor with more money than sense. The year previous we had been to Paris and on returning home eagerly awaited our snaps to find that majority were blurry- such a disappointment. So before leaving home I went out and bought the brand new Canon Digital Ixus which was amazingly small and took not a bad photo too. Though quite expensive at £500 it was not a problem at the time.
This little camera was brilliant. It could fit in my pocket without any trouble. Whenever I took it out I would have someone over at me asking to have a look at it. I felt like James Bond. And at night my girlfriend and I would go through the snaps on the digital screen deleting the ones we didn't need knowing when we got home we would have no crappy blurred snaps to printout.
As I said that was 9 years ago and the little camera is still going strong but I feel it is time it was given retirement. Obviously the technology is ancient now. Even my phone can take more detailed snaps. It also used Compact Flash which is almost redundant nowadays. But the real let down over the years was the battery. This doesn't last long. In the end I had to get an additional one for when we needed to use it and even that didn't give us much photo time. So inevitably it has found itself in a drawer in the kitchen and we have been mostly using our phones. The phones are actually OK outside on the whole but inside are pretty crap. I noticed looking back through the photos the other day how bad the ones are of boy's first birthday and with oldest girl's sixth birthday approaching thought to myself now is the time for a new camera. After discussing it with my wife I was given the green light.
So over the past few weeks I have been looking at camera reviews on various sites to see which one to get. Like in every other area of life I have been as indecisive as ever. Originally I had convinced myself that I could take up photography so should get a D-SLR but not only is it selfishly impractical for use by the family but out of our price range. So it looks like a compact digital camera is the best way to go. I've looked at a few of these and have whittled it down to two. Well actually I had whittled it down to one but I was given a recommendation the other day and after looking at it I was very impressed. Both cameras were the same price on Amazon the other day but one has jumped up £40 which puts it just beyond my budget but I could get it cheaper elsewhere.
What I am looking for from my new camera is better quality in low light. Outside in good light really takes care of itself. Indoors though and taking photos in late evening or on dark cloudy days there is a difference. So that for me along with the best image quality possible are the deciding factors for me. The trouble is I don't know if one is better than the other as both appear to be equally capable in those regards. The two cameras are the Canon Digital IXUS 980 IS and the Fujifilm Finepix F200EXR. If I went on reviews alone on Amazon the Canon would win hands down but its been out a while and the Fujifilm is just out. In two magazines I have looked at the Fujifilm has been featured and has been heavily praised for its image capabilities- its only let down seem to be the lack of features required for the serious photographer but there are none of those in my family.
