Wide angle compacts?

A friend of my wife's, an old lady of approx 75yrs. has not converted from film yet and asked me to look for a (reasonably priced? £100.00 'ISH) digital compact camera for her. She likes to take scenery and is going to the arctic on a summer cruise. So the question is. Which WIDE angle compact to get? It doesn't have to be Pentax although it would be nice if it was. For my benefit so that I can look myself what is the compact equivalent of 24mm to 28mm in 35mm terms?. Is it something like 4x? which would mean 6mm to 7mm? CHEERS Vic.

Pentax P70 is great quality and available for close to £100 where stocks remain. Choice of colours too!

Hello Vic,

Although I shouldn't say it, I'm a confirmed Ricoh man when it comes to compacts, although one rarely reads a poor review of Panasonic products. Unfortuately wide angle/good/£100 don't really go together. I guess it's something to do with the cost of making a decent wide-short telezoom.

Interestingly the Pentax P70 is a possibility, although you are unlikely to get one very close to £100 it may be worth the stretch. It has a decent lens 27.5-110, good AF performance and is dead easy to use. It's also well put together. You can get a Ricoh R10 for similar money but it's a more sophisticated instrument and may not be suitable.

One important thing to consider is whether your friend can use an LCD to compose: in my experience it's something older ladies have quite a bit of trouble with, being so used to view-finders. If this is an issue, then you have to look at Canon who are one of the few makers to continue fitting the odd camera with (not very accurate) view-finders. I know the A1100 has one as does the 100IS which is more expensive but better. Sadly, neither has a wide-angle lens.

I've just realised that this doesn't solve you problem at all. Sorry!

Best wishes,

Andrew

There is no one standard for compacts as there are many different sizes of sensors for them. Fortunately, most manufacturers and dealers tell you the 35mm equivalent on their websites.

As a Ricoh GX200 owner (and a CX1 and P70 beforehand) I will endorse the P70 as a great choice, It has excellent IQ, better than the CX1, and the FOV at the wide end is actually wider, even though both are quoted as 28mm. Here's a comparison.

Pentax P70



Ricoh CX1



It's only real downside is the software based pixel track SR SR system which although effective, slows the responsiveness of the camera down horribly and is also unpredictable when it decides to kick in! I turned it off on mine. It's great to see that the new i-10 users proper sensor based SR, I've tried all the current small body JPEG only P&S cameras and I suspect that it should be the small P&S of choice.

However, I love my Ricoh GX200 , I wish Pentax made something similar. In my opinion, Raw capability is more important with a small sensor than with an APS-C, it's made a compact camera a truly usable reality for me. I can understand the GX and GR users enthusiasm for them, very similar to Pentax users love of the D-SLR's.

Now £99 @ SRS

Thanks for all your replies. As to you Richard Day I couldn't find a Pentax but you came up with the P70. I 'phoned SRS he had 2 left, now he has one. It is inside my parameters of 24/28 with 27.5mm and quite a good zoom range. Thanks again all job done. CHEERS Vic.

It is a good little camera, I bought mine from Richard before he bought something odd

oh no he hasn't

The final P70 , a white one , is heading it's way North

Park have some P80's (P70 replacement) for £120 in black, white and green.

EDIT - What about Chris's £15 discount offer to forum members on the new i-10? SRS i-10 offer

Such a cool design!

I upgraded to a GX200 after two faulty CX1's, see, it happens to other brands as well!

BTW - The GX200 is so much better, superb in Raw, a very happy bunny now.

Probably a bit pricey and a bit late but the Lumix LX3 is a stonking compact camera. It has an excellent, fast ( f/2 - 2.8 ) wide angle lens (24-60mm equiv) and larger than the run of the mill sensor so higher ISO performance is really quite impressive (for a compact). Build quality is excellent too.

I was so impressed I bought one for my better half (I do get to use it occasionally)

It's a favourite of many, including Ned Bunnel (CEO of Pentax USA), he uses the Leica badged variant. It's an alternative to the GX200, though more expensive, but I find the GX 200 lens to be better and I really like the clip on optical EVF.

I had it's earlier incarnation, the LX1, but never acclimatised to it's handling or menu system, the IQ, even in Raw wasn't so hot either, but the new LX3 has that sorted.

I'd love an LX3 if only it did some telephoto. 60mm (equiv) is no good of you like to pick out details from landscapes and urbanscapes.

The LX2 has a larger range, and good image quality if you stick to ISO 100. The lens is razor sharp. It's only goes to 28mm (equiv) in the 16:9 format, though - not as wide at 28mm with a squarer format.

Technoidiot. You cheeky young whippersnapper sneaking in on my thread and being a copycat. Just joking. I was asked to find a reasonably priced camera with a reasonably wide angle lens for a 75yr old lady(just 4 more than me) who is not very technically minded but wants a camera for her hols. in the summer. I looked myself and found most wide angle cameras are approx £150.00 and up. when Richard mentioned the P70 I followed up and got the blue one. If the post is up to scratch it should arrive today if not then tomorrow. I will have to thoroughly read and inwardly digest the instructions first then try to teach her how to use it as best as I can. It will most probably remain on auto and default settings for the rest of its life. CHEERS Vic.