Point and shoot camera recommendations?
 

My Sony T1 has crapped out so I am using an old Nikon Coolpix with a tiny 1.5" LCD screen until I decide on something else.

Looking for something in the $300-$500 range. Most in this category have auto lens covers that appear to have a high failure rate based on reviews. Based on the reviews, the failures appears to be just a matter of time. Looking at the Nikon S9100 and S8100 and both have lots of failure reviews:(

Saw a recent post on a new Sony NEX-3C which looks nice (no auto lens cover) but it's a little outside my budget.

Any recommendations?

up the damn ante and take some quality pics with mucho room for goodies and try out a NIKON D-5000. i have had mine for 2 years now and it is IDIOT PROOF!


get the 12v battery charger, the 110 battery charger and some extra camera cards and yer off to the races. hell for 16 days i had my camera challenged wifey zapping great pics and she never used one before in her life.



16days = 1169 pics on one card and 400 on the 2nd card. thats 1569 pics day and night of our trip(stroll) journey,tour thru the great american west!

Canon G12.

I have the Canon G9 . Awesome camera.

Panasonic Lumix... can be had with Leica or Zeiss lenses

$309 with Leica glass

$299 with Zeiss glass

Check em out

This Panasonic has a built in GPS so you can geotag your photos..using Google earth or some other programs you can click locate you photos on the globe..

Panasonic/Leica/w GPS

+1 on Lumix

Lumix or Canon S95

see recent threads on this

Panasonic Lumix. I bought the DMC-LX5 based on the review on Digital Cameras: Digital Photography Review, News, Reviews, Forums, FAQ and am very pleased. F2.0 Leica lens. Wider angle than most other P&S cameras. You lose a little on the telephoto side though. Great for indoor shots. My DSLR gets less & less use lately.

My real camera is a Nikon D80 a few years old now but still works great and does more than I know. My keep it in my pocket cameras have always been Canon Power-shots. True the lens covers would fail from time to time but Canons service and warranty are exceptional. My last Power shot died about two weeks ago. Staples was out of the newest Power shot version unless I wanted pink (which I didn't). I saw a Sony camera called a bloggie which looks like a cell phone. It was in the same price range as the Canon and thought I'll give it a try since they have a 14 day return policy.

The camera is 12.8 megapixels, 8MB internal hard drive, internal battery, takes 4 hours of 1080 HD video and can capture still imaging while videoing. It has a pop out USB port and an HDMI output, 4X zoom and a 3" touch screen. The lens is stationary and does not have a cover so nothing to fail.

I have had it about two weeks now and so far so good. Pictures are great, Video is great, down loading video and pics are simple. The camera controls are simple it has an on off button a designated video button and a dedicated image capture button. The touch screen is simple and easy to use.

It's a totally self contained unit nothing to loose remove or connect. No video cards, removable batteries, wires just clean and simple.

So far I like it. Of course I haven't had to deal with Sony customer service or warranties. Hopefully I wont. It cost just about $200.00. The only down side I see so far is the screen sometimes has a glare on it making it difficult to see.

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think about the features you really want in a point & shoot

if you have a good DSLR and a smartphone, then the P&S needs to fit into that "interior gap" and provide some advantage over the other two cameras - say, overall image quality and portability

then there are "special situations" - flash use, macro, long long lens (wildlife or sports); ultra-wide work, etc. -- DSLR wins every one of those and also has ease of use (ergonomics) adv.s

I chose the Canon S95 ($350) for the above reasons - a $150 Sony is a fine little carry in one of the cars all the time things, but does not have the image quality or ease of use of the Canon

Thanks for the recommendations. I've been leaning towards the Canon S95 until seeing that a newer model S100 is due to be released in November.

Canon Powershot S100 Preview: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

id go for the lumix over a canon but thats just me.

1,500 pix over 16 days is nothing. :) Amatuer level at best.

you might tell everyone why...

Ya... We shot close to 2,000 on a 3 day trip with my XTi....

Canon G series.9,10,11 or 12. Fantastic photos and unreal HD video. Long battery life, no issues. Great build quality.

I like our Nikon 3100 we got for under 500 with a couple of scopes.

Mostly personal pref. but I do believe the lumix line has a better selection of lenses. the Canon vs Nikon vs whatever debate has become pretty stale, its splitting hairs anymore... your going to get about the same image no matter the tool you choose.

The new Canon S100 looks awfully nice for a small P&S.

Santa's going to get me a Leica V-Lux 2. I know, cause I just really want one.

I like the better low light noise performance than the S95 & if it really has a built in in GPSS that is nice also.

I don't really care about the movie abilities.

I suspect it will be much more spendy than the S95, and the latter might continue on.

Not that much more. They can be pre-ordered on Amazon now for $429. S95's are currently running about $370

Amazon.com: Canon PowerShot S100 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black): Camera & Photo

ok, sounds like it will replace the 95 then

I've already used the S95 I bought so likely too late to send it back.

I can use it to practice getting used to Canon's "backwards" lens zooming...

Well, I haven't pulled the trigger yet. I've been watching the reviews of the S100 on Amazon and they are not good. Consensus appears to be that the S95 is a better camera and now its price has dropped to $289. Complaints center around image quality, white balance and battery life.

In the end many (though not all) of the "reviews" have little to do with reality or actual use of the camera. Instead there are a lot of people who love to pixel peep and rant endlessly about minutiae.

Most modern cameras take ridiculously good pictures. I think that form factor and focal length are probably your primary concerns. I like the S95 for $289. The LX5 was also on sale for about that at Amazon recently. Flip a coin.

absolutely true - that Krockwell guy is one of the worst, tho I like to read his blog

Look at it from this view(finder): what does the S100 have that the S95, S90 does not have?

do you really want the GPS? what else?

PS - they all have poor battery life - you are shoehorning a lot of chips and a flash into a tiny body

Point and shoot? simple....Iphone. No need for any under $300 point and shoot if you have one.
I would then recommend an LX5, S100 or X-Z1 for compact or the Olympus or Pana micro 4/3s.

check here for spirited debates and serious reviews:

http://www.dpreview.com/

We love our old and simple Canon PowerShot SD1000

Casio12.1 Exilim has been very nice. Cheap but good pics.

Lx-5

I think the forums at dpreview are probably populated by the highest percentages of tools and fools that I've ever seen. There are some good/smart people there but the signal to noise ratio is incredibly low.

A far saner place imho: The GetDPI Photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin

Not nearly as big but the people there actually shoot instead of obsess over pixels.

Picked up the S100 a few weeks ago. Love it. Even I can take good picks now.

I was looking into the same thing. At that price point the competition between the brands is pretty fierce. I was looking for the best optical zoom and good quality picture at a reasonable price. The standouts in this field are the Panasonic Lumix ZS8 and ZS10 because they both have 16X optical zoom with image stability. The difference is that the ZS10 has more features - it has a touch screen viewer, HD video, faster burst modes, and GPS. The XS8 has the same lenses, a slightly better processor that gives better quality still pictures in some circumstances, and longer battery life.

Here is an excellent review of the two with comparisons to the Canon and Sony competitors.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ18 / ZS8 design | Cameralabs

The best part is that both are significantly reduced price at Best Buy


Product Detail - Compare Page

The ZS8 is usually $279, now it is $148 online at Best Buy's website. If you go into the store it's $220, but they price-match it to the Bestbuy.com site. You have to ask, but they'll look it up and do it if you ask.

The ZS10 is usually $349 but is on sale for $249. Both are screaming good deals, although I think you can get the ZS10 about $20 cheaper from BH Photo in New York, if you're willing to depend only on mail delivery and are willing to wade through their upsell pitches to get to the actual camera.

+1 LX-5

I just scored when I bought one when Amazon had it for $269 to replace my old Fuji F31 (anyone want to buy it?) and I suspect that it will perform well once I better understand it. I plan to purchase the electronic viewfinder.

Just don't look through the EVF on the new Sonys (a65/a77/NEX-7/accessory for NEX-5n). You won't want to buy the panny one after that. Problem is the add-on Sony is like $300 just for the EVF.

LX5 is a really good camera, mostly due to the fast glass (especially for a p&s). Having f2 @ 24mm with OIS is damn useful in low light situations. fwiw I'm not crazy about super zooms in general and with a p&s in particular as you lose a fair amount of image quality trying to shove that much zoom into a really short distance. I think that 24-90 and 28-105 are a good "sweet spot" for a small camera. Both the LX5 and S95 are f2 at the wide end.

Thanks for the heads-up; I had no plan to look for anything but the Panasonic EVF and I suspect that I'll even wait to purchase one of those as this will be mostly used as a backup/go to quickly camera while backpacking/climbing.

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all with a panasonic lx-5