Digital camera / camcorder help required

[Brovion]

Good people of NSC, Mrs Brovian has decided she wants a digital camera. Now I'm very much in the darkroom (do you see what I've done there?) when it comes to things like this - I don't know the difference between megapixies and Cornish pixies and I want some help. Google is no good at all, it's just gives me a baffling array of products so I thought I'd come for help from the greatest minds on the planet.

Now what she really wants is something that can be both a digital camera AND a camcorder. Firstly does such a beast exist? Secondly if it does then is it better to ignore it and buy two separate products?

Price IS important, and we're only domestic users, not filmmakers - but on the other hand we don't want bargain basement rubbish with no features.

Anybody got any ideas, products web sites etc?

Thanks in advance.

 

[the slow norris]

Now then,

I've just bought this little beauty off of amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000EW757K/202-8292737-1254203

Most digital camera's (including this one) have video camera capabilities. The amount of stuff you can record is dependent on the size of the memory card you buy. I have bought a 1gb memory card which gives about 13mins of recording time. One of the reason's I bought this camera is that it records video at about 30 frames per second, which is supposed to be near TV quality. I'm v happy with it and it has got good reviews from various review websites, including Which?. However, a digital camera is not going to be as good as a digital camcorder, it depends on what the missus wants i.e. is she gonna use it more as a camera or as a camcorder?

Like I said, v happy with this camera, is pretty cheap (amazon was the cheapest I could find it at btw) and passes the all important "fits in the pocket test". I'm no professional either btw so am only using it for holiday snaps that type of thing.

Hope this helps

 

[Brovion]

Thanks Mr Norris, I think I'll end up with two cameras, one for snaps and the other for videoing.

 

[Napper]

2 years ago brough a fuji finepix a400 and has been blinding , the newer models of this are about £110 ish . I think optical zoom is to look out for and the higher the mega pixel the better.

no expert but that fuji camera has been superb + newer models do movies etc

Hope that helps