Advice on camera purchase please.

Looking to buy a digital camera for general family usage and the inevitable trials pics. What can you chaps recommend ? Needs to be simple to operate and download, able to cope with speed of bikes plus lack of light and be tough enough to take to events. Dont need to be able to do movies. Budget approx

LOW COST DIGITAL CAMERA

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS SHUTTER LAG (TIME BETWEEN PUSHING THE BUTTON AND THE IMAGE CAPTURE)

THE LAST TIME I LOOKED THE BEST VALUE FOR MONEY WAS THE CASIO EXILIM RANGE

IT ALSO TAKES VIDEO

Edited June 5, 200620 yr by rapid roy

most cheap digitals allow you to prefocus so it cuts lag which is inherent with normal digitals

they also have a sports mode that helps with moving bikes

it just take some experimentation to learn to use

just get a highish number of megapixles, quiet a bit of ***optical*** zoom (digital zoom is BS!) and a decent memory card or two (so you can take loads of photos and not worry about crap shots)

There's a US site that is pretty helpful and full of reviews that I use when considering cameras:

There's a "Feature select" area that I've just thrown US$300 as the upper limit, and it came back with some nice cameras.

Have a play yourself here: DP Review.com (Compare Page)

In my experience the "snapshot" style digital cameras are not quite up to the job of action shots. I started out with a Canon Powershot S50 - 5m pixels and a great digital camera but not for action. I did plenty of action with it but you can never quite overcome the shutter lag no matter what folks say and how hard you try.

Impressed with digital, I eventually bought a s/h Nikon D70 with a 18/70 lens and it is brilliant. Everything about it is so good, that I have also bought a D50 which has almost as many features but with a 18/55 lens. Current price of a new D50 on Amazon is

Hillary is correct.

Unless you want to just click-and-hope, you must use an SLR. Perhaps a point-and-shoot camera that allows comepletely manual operation--both focus and exposure--might give you a fighting chance, but those features are usually in the province of more expensive point-and-shoot cameras.

Point-and-shoot compact digital cameras were made for snapshots, not for shooting sports action.