Please help me find a camera

[BossyBella]

Which camera should I buy?

This short questionnaire will help the rest of us make good camera recommendations for you. Please answer each question carefully and succinctly.

The questions marked with a * are the most important.

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible.

I'm in the UK and am planning to spend about £200 - £250.

Size

* What size camera are you looking for? Or does size not matter at all to you?

It has to fit in my pocket.

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?

7 +

* What optical zoom will you need? (None, Standard = 3x-4x, Ultrazoom = 10x-12x)

Standard is fine, anything extra is a bonus.

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)

8-9

Do you care for manual exposure modes (shutter priority, aperture priority, manual)?

Not really.

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?

Scenic shots, photos of the children, maybe some sporty pics

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?

Not often, but it'd be nice to have it as an option

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos?

Yes, I guess about 60% of our shots are indoors.

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?

Yep, but this is not the main use of the camera.

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?

No.

Are there particular models you already have in mind?

I've considered the Olympus mju range but purely as a gadget as I don't really need my camera to withstand such extremes. I've also considered Sony T200. I'm open to other models.

(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD)

No but I get frustrated with the shutter lag on my current camera (Pentax, optio s4i), I'd like something ALOT faster.

I hope you can help as I know very little about cameras!

[Andy Stanton]

The top ultracompact cameras are probably the Canon SD950IS (excellent picture quality and performance, though the time it takes between flash pictures can approach 10 seconds), the Panasonic FX 35 (very good picture quality, very wide angle lens), Panasonic FS 20 (very good all around), and Fuji F100fd (very good all around but excellent at low light). The Panasonic TZ5 is a bit larger but can still fit into a pocket. The TZ5 takes very good pictures plus has a much longer optical zoom than the others.

[BossyBella]

Thank you so much for your advice.

I've narrowed it down to the Canon SD950 IS, Panasonic FX35 or Fuji F100fd. I've read the reviews and there doesn't seem to be much between them.

My most important consideration is a quick shutter lag - with this in mind can anyone advise me further with regards to these three models?

Thanks again

[Andy Stanton]

Shutter lag is good for all three.

All three are top notch ultracompact cameras, so you can't go wrong with either one.

I think what it comes down to is that Canon SD950IS is better if you really want an optical viewfinder or particularly like Canon's picture quality. The Panasonic is preferred if you want a very wide angle view and like Panasonic's picture quality (somewhat punchy). Finally, the Fuji is better if you need to shoot a lot of pictures under low light conditions.

Here's an article that may help you decide.
http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/d...sp?newsID=3449