UKC

I don't seem to have much luck with cameras. After less than one year my Canon S100 has died - liquid entry... I don't know how that happened. It is going to cost £220 to fix. I could buy a S120 for almost that.

Yet again I'm in the market for a new camera. Whilst I'm not really a photographer I really enjoy taking photos and am always snapping away whilst climbing.

I really liked the S100. it took great pictures and was small enough that I never left it behind. The only negative was that the battery life in cold weather was awful.

Before that I had a Nikon P7000 which was great. Except it was a bit too big for rock climbing. That said it good carried a lot and I really liked using it. Reasonable battery life too.

Before that I had a Canon S90, which I bought second hand. It took great photos but the review button never worked, which was a pain.

Before that I had a Panasonic LX3. That was ace until it got nicked. I found the manual lens cover a bit of a faff though.

Any recommendations for a good climbers camera?

Essential Features
-Good quality wide angle lens
-Good battery life in cold weather
-Robust and durable
-Small enough that It can be carried up routes (A canon G series is too big)

I was thinking about getting a second hand LX5 for £159.

Any other cameras I should be considering?

I'm realistically not going to spend more than £250. I don't mind buying grey imports or second hand.

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

It sounds like you need a "tough" camera. I think Olympus and Fuji have that sector of the market tied up. Image quality may not be as good as what you've seen from P7000 and S100 but it sounds like compactness and resilience are more important than pixel-peeping.

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

Have a look at the Sony RX100 (not RX100 2) their list price is around £350-450 but there are several on FleaBay (including new ones) that might just be in your price range. Compact, retractable lens, 28-105 lens, shoots raw, AND exceptional image quality for a compact as the sensor is 4x bigger than most compacts.
I have one and it is excellent.

Chris

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

I have a used in near mint condition Olympus XZ-1 that I am about to put on ebay it has an Olympus original spare battery.

Get in touch if your interested.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Cheers Chris... I was looking at those earlier. How much better is a rx100 than say an s120 or a lx7. Oh and why is it better and will I be able to tell as someone who just snaps lots of pictures in beautiful places.

Also what is the battery life like in bad weather?

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

How much better? How long is a piece of string? The sensor is 4x bigger than you are used to so gathers 4x more light = less noise and better low light performance. You will only tell a difference if you zoom in but then it really shows.
Re the battery - not too sure about in the cold, I always carry a (cheap) spare in the case - I guess a weeks use out of a charge (c300 shots). The battery charges 'in camera' via a USB which can be useful - or pain depending on your POV,


Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:


Does that mean you could charge it straight from a solar panel with USB output?

Cheers for the info. I hope I get a good rate for the photos I've sold to a magazine.

I presume you have no plan to upgrade to the mark 2?!

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:


I would have thought so - I think that is the point, from a laptop, car lighter socket, etc


That would be good.


Can't see the point - looks a bit over-priced.

Shot from the camera: http://www.pbase.com/chris_craggs/image/151716589


Chris

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

Tom, I have an S100 and a mate has an RX100. The Sony produces the best p&s image I've seen, by a fair margin, even without zooming in.

The buttons are small though, so you might want to try handling one with gloves first. I find the S100 buttons small enough, and the RX100 seems smaller.

Not sure on the battery life of the Sony, but I agree the S100 was pretty rubbish in that regard.

I doubt a new RX100 mark 2 is worth the money, for what you want. The LX are good IQ but I take a lot of one-handed shots on belay etc and the lens cap faff and protrusion/size put me off.

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

know very little about photography but just bought small superzoom (X20) and tried a sony cyber shot (x40) - provided you get all the functionality you specified i would hunt out something with this function if for nothing else than checking routes - its like having powerful binos with you

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I know they're way over the OP's price bracket, but has anyone seen/tried/got the Nikon 1 AW1 thingy - mid size (i.e. big sensor compared to a compact) but 'tough' (waterproof, drop-proof, freeze-proof, etc) with interchangeable lenses?
lardbrain

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fujifilm-XF1-Digital-Camera-EXR-CMOS/dp/B009C9HYE0/...
got one of these after my Ricoh died, picture quality is excelent but the controls have a few quirks that need getting used to and not sure how tough it would be climbing long term. Good wide angle on it for climbing and it is reduced at the moment.

In reply to jethro kiernan:

Interesting. I've seen those before online but never in the flesh. How tough is that brown material? Also how weatherproof is it/what is it like in bad weather?

Cheers T

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

The body is reasonably robust, as for weather proofing I feel there are probably tougher cameras out there but havnt put it fully to the test its been in wet rucksacks and out and about in the rain and hillwalking in the winter, the brown metarial is reasonably robust.
My one bugbear is the video function the button of which is easy to activate so you can find yourself accidently shooting vid. I am sure this could be disabled just havnt got round to it.

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

Plus 1 for the RX100. Had loads of shots published / won competitions with it.

In reply to jethro kiernan:

They are 130 in Curry's so way more affordable. Just been for a play. It is a nice bit of kit and takes nice pics, especially in velvia mode. The only reason I didn't buy one is I found it difficult to turn on one handed... How do you find this?

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

That looks like a decent bit of kit but what a cack-handed way of turning a camera on!


Chris

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

You do get used to it, but can catch you out if you havnt used the camera for a while and are in a hurry

In reply to Chris Craggs:

I bought one for a trip to Pembroke last weekend. Pretty happy with the images and very quickly got used to the slightly different controls. Whilst I'm sure the rx100 is a much better camera I don't think you can do much better for £130.

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

I bought a Sony Cybershot for a crag camera. Great lens, no RAW, ON button a bit fiddly but great value for the dosh

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

The large sensor of the RX100 sounds good. But the 24mm of the LX7 (&5or3), vs 28mm wins for me.

Also i just found out if you turn off the lens correction (via exif data) it goes even wider!

I use a JJC auto lens cap on my LX7.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/JJC-Auto-Lens-Panasonic-JUPN206/dp/B009J8VUHG/ref=s...

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

MMmmm

Don't think this would fit your needs

http://twitpic.com/e1qhx2

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide etc.:

Those of you with the XF1. How are you getting on with the turning-on mechanism? I have just spent ten minutes in Currys mostly just switching the camera on and off repeatedly. Took 5 minutes to get used to it, then I spent the other 5 minutes wondering how long that mechanism will last. It seems prone to damage by brute force. I had little faith in it. I can see what they've done, they are saving space by having motors only for AF and not for lens retraction etc.

Convince me!

At the moment I'd rather go chunkier and spend a teeny bit more on (say) a second hand X10

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I've used Tom's camera a bit and although it isn't too bad - it is definitely less than ideal when you are belaying.

Much easier to get a shot whilst belaying if you just have to press a button to turn it on and then press a button to zoom in/out rather than fiddle with the lense thing.

Just my tuppence worth though.

Dunc

In reply to Duncan Campbell - UKC:

Cheers. I "liked" that the one in the shop had an info tag hanging off it that was actually titled "The three steps to turning on your Fujifilm camera"! Even the shop assistants had to agree that it was a rather self-defeating declaration!

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

I got a Nikon P330 a couple of months back and have been very impressed with everything about it...apart from its write speed for RAW files which is glacial. So if you're only planning on taking individual shots rather than bursts, it's fine.

It's also got a great f/1.8 lens which produces superb low light images. I've never used mine in cold weather so can't comment on the battery life in such conditions, but I do rate it highly thus far. I think I paid about £229 or something like that on Amazon. (Some of my recent gallery shots are taken with it.)

In reply to Fraser:


I have a Kodak DC-120 which takes about 30 seconds to write a sub-1Mb file in the proprietary Kodac ".kdc" format. If that's too dazzlingly fast you can write a .tiff file which does not appear to hold any more image detail but which is huge and which takes about 2 minutes, if the batteries last that long. In 1997, apparently people thought this camera was ACE! :-/

In reply to Chris Craggs:

The important thing about the RX100 (for me) is that Alamy will accept shots from it,


Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:


I've been very impressed with my RX100 so far (the image quality is not really shown up too much by my XE-1 which is partly what I bought it for). Only complaint is that it's often very hard to see much on the screen in bright light.