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Look at the Canon S60 or S70, or the G5 or G6 (you can see them at powershot.com, and check prices at dealcam.com)

Good luck!

CaptKevMan wrote:

Look at the Canon S60 or S70, or the G5 or G6 (you can see them at powershot.com, and check prices at dealcam.com)

Good luck!

This is sound advice. No need to look further than this post! Canon makes some of the best cameras in this range.

You may also want to look into their A line: A85, A95. Those might be more in your price range. All excellent cameras.

thekingalrock wrote:

CaptKevMan wrote:

Look at the Canon S60 or S70, or the G5 or G6 (you can see them at powershot.com, and check prices at dealcam.com)

Good luck!

This is sound advice. No need to look further than this post! Canon makes some of the best cameras in this range.

You may also want to look into their A line: A85, A95. Those might be more in your price range. All excellent cameras.

The A85 and A95 are good, but they're not as feature-rich as the other two families of cameras. But you really can't go wrong with any of them.

galeninjapan wrote:

How important would you say the lens is? Some of the cameras with larger lenses look like they might take better quality pictures. Is that true?

If you mean physically larger, no. However, the lens is a very important part of a camera. Before you think about quality, you should think about certain specifications or criteria for a lens. Namely, focal length and aperture.

For me, a camera must have, at the very least, a minimum focal length of 35mm. I won't buy a camera that starts at 37 or 38mm. That's simply not wide enough. It's rare, but some compact cameras have lenses starting at 28mm, which is considerably wide for a built in lens. Most people don't realize it, but it's usually much more important to have a short lens than it is to have a long lens.

Then there is aperture, the size of the lens opening. This is important for shooting in low light without using the flash, increasing the ISO or having to use a tripod. Cameras in this range will have maximum apertures around f/2.8. The smaller this number, the larger the opening is. The larger the opening is, the more light can get to the sensor, which means you can take photos unhindered in lower light. One of the main advantages of Canon's G series is these cameras' maximum aperture of f/2.0. This is a very wide aperture for a 'compact' camera.

As far as quality, this is something that can be unpredictable. If you look at reviews of cameras at dpreview you'll find what lenses have issues with purple fringing and flare. This is more of an issue with high resolution cameras. Keep in mind that most lens 'problems' are things that wouldn't bother the average digicam owner.

I've been very happy with my Sony Cybershot.  It takes awesome pictures and it can't be beaten for ease of use and durability.

Wow, I love when they move threads to rarely-frequented forums!

I love my Canon A75.  3.2 megapixel.  Essentially the only difference in the A85 or A95 is that they have higher megapixels, but all other features are pretty much identical.  Unless you're going to be printing out some poster-size prints, you dont need anything more than 3-4 megapixels.  the A75 has been terrific for viewing on my computer, and printing out 4x6's with my Canon i960.

Blueboy626 wrote:

I wouldn't buy anything less than 5 megapixels because within a year the new models will be in  the 20-30  mega P range for the same price.

Personally I like the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20K. a 12X Leica optical lens (OK, Zeiss would be better) complete manual controls including *focus, 5mp @ $470.00 US.

Depends on the end use.
If all the images will be used mostly for Emailingg and web use then anything over 3mpix is over-kill.
On the other hand if lots of 8x10s are in the future get 5Mpix for sure.