Teresa wrote:I'm about to hijack this thread a little bit (it's still about finding a digital camera.)
How about something with these specs?
Dream Camera
7+ MP
Manual or autofocus options
decent manual or autoset macro focus
white balance adjustment
Tiff or jpeg format (can have RAW, but not RAW default.)
35-90mm+ zoom equivalent picture cropping
On camera flash plus hot shoe
crisp, low noise pictures ISO 400 or less (don't need extreme high speed/low light)
Manual shutter/aperture and Automatic exposure options
consumer battery option. If proprietary battery, it needs to have a 'on the go' recharger (connect to car battery or such--I camp, don't motel it often)
xD or SD storage cards (or both)
Able to use polarizer or ND filter, or settings to mimic polarizer (Shoot a lot of water.)
No dSLR: Price range needs to be $600 or less.
NOT all right handed. Features balanced, or at least something for the left hand to do.
2.5 inch LCD.
Image does not halo easily.
Moderately sized. Like the old compact film rangefinders, not as big as SLRs.
Ok--go for it!
PS. I still like my FE-180-- but I'm shooting more and getting paid for it, and those folks want higher quality photos--something I cannot get with no manual settings.
Um I like my Canon S3 IS and it satisfies most of those criteria and comes in at AUS$ 600 when I bought it.
There is not hotshoe
it is 6 MP not 7.
You can get lens tubes for it to mount polarisers and further tele or wide angle lenses. Uses 4AAs.
I think the S3 is 2" not 2.5" but look at the resolution of the screen as well as size.
I have just looked on dpreview and there is the next model out (S5 IS) it's 8 MP and has a hotshoe.
My only comment would be to perhaps see if they handle sensor noise properly at 8 MP because when I bought mine more than 6 MP meant you lost alot of the picture quality gained by having more MP in noise because they had to cram more sensors in the same space.
On mine noise is not really an issue at ISO 400 and below, Canon also seems to take a softly softly aproach to noise reduction doing little noise reduction in the camera so you can do it on your computer (this is a good thing as it preserves as much detail as possible), size is good, a lot smaller than a DSLR.
Canon S5 IS Looks very cool
Canon S3 IS Still a good camera in my opinion although about a year or more old now.
Others to look at were the Sony H2 and H5 although they have a H9 and H7 out now.
I'm not up to date on these so it has all moved on since I looked.
http://www.dpreview.com has very good reviews if you wait till thier full reviews come up they give very detailed comparisons
I didn't like Panasonic as thier noise reduction is very heavy as thier sensors were noisy. Sony and Canon were the pick of the bunch when I looked IMO (this possibly has changed but probably not that much).