[* Official Black Friday DIGITAL CAMERA Thread *]

I posted this in the electronics forum, butI'm gonna post here to since these cameras are on sale this weekend and BF and I really wanna get one soon. any advice?

Ok, after much researching I have narrowed it down to 4-5 cameras, so now I need help. Does anyone have any comments/suggestions or have you used the phone.

 

Canon SD500(maybe SD550)- these 2 phones are virtually the same, only the 550 has a slightly larger screen. The only bad thing I've heard is that some peoples screens cracked on the 500, haven't heard of any cracking on the 550.

Fuji F10- this has lower mp than the canon (7.2 vs fuji's 6.1) but the iso is higher so it can take low light pictures w/o a flash.

Kodak Z730- haven't heard too much about this one, but it's a 5mp with 4x optcal zoom I think.

Sony DSC-W7- This is my final option. It has 7mp, but I heard the picture quality wasn't quite as good as the canon.

 

Please let me know what you think. I'm hoping to get one in the next week. I'm checking prices, and they are pretty close, but I'm willing to pay a little more fora better camera, I just don't want to go to SLR because they are too big, otherswise I would get the canon S1 I2.

It depends on what you are looking for. If you look for a "prosumer" class camera (SLR-like), I'd go for Panasonic FZ series with the powerful Leica lens. The most important part of the camera is the lens, and S2 IS is nowhere near FZs.

 

IF you need good point-and-shoot, go for Fuji F10. Its low light performance nears SLR. Generally, all non-SLRs introduce a lot of noise with ISO 200 and above. The unique exception is F10. However, if you go for FZ20, it has a hot shoe that will allow to use external flash (a decent one sells around 70$ on Ebay), so you don't have to worry about low-light conditions.

 

bottom line: Pana FZs or Fuji F10

Hope it helps.

[* Official Black Friday DIGITAL CAMERA Thread *]

Optical zoom = good (although cameras with a big optical zoom are usually bulky)

Well, I would not say that the Panasonic FZ series (FZ5,FZ15,FZ20, amd FZ30) are bulky. Actually, they are rated as the best in the prosumer class with powerful 12x stabilized zoom and 2.8 aperture throughout the entire zoom range. Much better than Canon, Kodak, and all the others in this class.

 

Also, combined with the Olympus TCON 14B telelens, I have 18x optical zoom :gd_pineap

 

If you find a good deal on these - jump on it (anything around 300$).