www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Hello All,
I'm hoping soon to buy my first ever digital camera, and am thinking of spending up to £250. It needs to be a useful all-rounder, good for landscapes, holidays, occasional motorsport and useful for some close-up butterfly shots as well.
I've not really done much photography in the past, so welcome any advice. I'm wondering how closely the current digital compacts can focus to the subject; it's quite encouraging to see David Tipping's gallery, achieved with his digital compact.

Hi

If you shop around you may find a Fuji S7000 for that price. Excellent macro camera and good at the other stuff too!

Here's one on eBay for £200!

Hi Andy

If I were you I would look for a new camera, Canon and Nikon are very good.

Canon A630 8 Million pixels, 35-140mm lens, 1 cm macro @ £175
Canon A640 10 million pixels, same as A630 @ £205
Canon S3IS 6 million pixels, 36-432 mm image stabilised lens @ £240

Try http://www.dpreview.com for all the latest tests/reviews
Try http://www.camerabox.co.uk for latest prices and 2 year guarantee
Try http://www.mymemory.co.uk for 1GB SD card @ £ 17

I would go down to your local camera store and try a few cameras 'hands-on'.

Good luck

Maurice

Another vote for the Fuji s7000 from me. I've had one for a couple of years and its excellent. I would say its almost unsurpassed for macro work in this price range, plus its a great all rounder. It actually feels and looks like a camera too, though this increases the size of the thing which might be an issue for you.

Regards
Matt

Many cameras have macro facilities but they can be crippled with having to get ridiculously close to the subject to fill the frame because the macro mode requires the camera to be set at full wide angle. The Fuji 7000 is better than most in that respect because it will allow single macro mode at medium focal lengths, sufficient to get quite good butterfly close-ups from about 4" away. Difficult but feasible.
I replaced my S602, which is much the same as the S7000 except for fewer pixel count, by a Canon S3. The Canon suffered from the mentioned criticism and I ended up having to buy a close up lens, the Canon 500D, and adapter. But what this enables me to do now is get very detailed shots from about 18" away because it is used at the telephoto end, and with a 12x optical zoom this is quite a telephoto. You can use the camera's flash at this distance without the lens barrel getting in the way.
The telephoto end will focus to about a meter which will give useful images of larger insects without any attachments. Getting this black tailed skimmer dragonfly that was perched over a lake without getting my feet wet for instance! I shot this from a meter away, and although it's a partial crop, there's still plenty of detail for an 8"x10" print.

hi,
I'm a bit late commenting on this, but all my shots here are taken with an Olympus C-500 ( 5 mb chip )

http://www.mgnastro.org/wildlife.html

This has a 'super' macro facility which does mean you have to get pretty close to the object, but the results are spectacular, especially considering it costs less than £100 now.

I use it constantly as an all rounder family/wildlife/panoramic camera . It is small enough to fit in normal jeans pockets and certainly cheap enough for a first camera.

Just look at my piccies to see what it does.

Having said all that, it's my 40th birthday this year & the good lady wife has given permission for me to buy a 35mm dslr, so I think I'll be upgrading to a D30 and a macro lens - so I've been paying close attention to the macro thread:-)

good luck with your decision

Martin
( http://www.mgnastro.org )

Hello all,

I've just started using a Canon Powershot S3 IS, a great all round compact for wildlife photography.

So far the S3 is proving to be a great camera with the flexibilty to allow me to tackle a wide range of subject, from birds to insects - I'm looking forward to using it for photographing butterflies & dragonflies.

I'm happy to be free from the weight constrants & cost of lugging my dSLR around. I effectively have a 432mm f3.5 image stabilised lens and body that will fit into my jacket pocket, for less than £270.

I'd hate to think how much that would cost if I went down the dSLR route !

Well worth a closer look, not exactly the smallest of compacts - But a great choice if you don't fancy the idea of lugging a dSLR and a couple of lenses around.

PM me if you want to see some sample photographs.

Regards

Mark