Repair 35mm or buy cheap new digital camera?

Matthew wrote:

I have a 35mm Olympus mju zoom 105, bought three years ago in Bangkok.
Now it has stopped working (the lens is no longer moving in and out,
and is stuck about 1cm out). Here in the UK it will cost £50 or more
to repair it.

So should I fix it in Bangkok (in chinatown, somewhere else? anyone
know how much it will cost?), or buy a new one?

If the answer is to buy a new one, how much do I need to spend to get
something that will have the same quality or better? I went to my
local camera shop (Jessops), and he insisted that the only thing that
mattered was the number of pixels. When I told him I wanted to produe
6x4 prints, he said that in that case 2mexapixels would be fine, and
that all of the cameras were the same, had the same quality lenses,
and there was no real reason to buy one rather than another....

Anyway, I am sure this is not true, but I have struggled to find a
simple 'best-buy for £150' (or less - do I need to spend this much?
more?). Any suggestions? And whether the quality of lenses varies much
between manufactuerers?


Most important is to get a high class GLASS optical system.

Without that it does not matter how many million pixels you get.

In order to print with 'good enough' quality on A4 size paper the
experts say 3-4 Meg pixels should do the job.

But be sure to get a high quality optical system, plastic can never do a
good job!

/Anders


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