Point and Shoot Camera Recommendations

[IndiaMala]

I found a handful of threads on this, but they are all 2+ yrs old and I'm looking for more up to date recommendations, and the last time I bought a P&S for myself was literally like 5 years ago ... it was a Sony and it STILL works great, but I know alot has changed in 5 years. I have a bride who asked me if I could recommend a good P&S for her to buy just for her own family's use for random pics at the wedding, and for her use on her honeymoon. I'd prefer to recommend something to her that is good at capturing colors as "spot on" as possible so that the prints would come out with good representative color. It drives me nuts when I see the really orange skin tones some of the cameras out there produce (I've seen so much of that lately!), so I guess the "spot on color" is highest on the list of priorities. Maybe even a recommendation on which brand seems to capture color best would be great and I can just go do research on models, but I'm hoping not to spend more than one evening trying to honestly figure out what I would recommend. Anyone have any recommendations??? Thanks in advance!

[newtune3]

I have found my Panasonic Lumix LX3 to render good skin tone in jpg and shoot raw if you don't like that. The jpg's are little saturated but you may read plenty on the web about that issue. My non photographer wife just took it to DC and captured some great sharp shots of the kids and the scenery. Lens is short though 24-60mm (35 mm equivalent). Great sharp camera though.

[JPalmer]

What is your budget.

[crazeazn]

canon or panasonic is my recommendation.

[andyz]

As it happens my wife took my 6 year old Canon P&S on a trip and returned home without it. So I find myself in the market as well. I use it for snapshots and short videos. I want it to use a CF card, for compatibility, but that isn't a deal breaker.

Is shutter lag a problem of the past, or should I really test a P&S hands on before buying it?

[SevenAndMe]

Canon just announced several new P&S cameras that will be out soon.
Like the SD970IS -

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...X0DER&v=glance

You can also go to canonusa.com -

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/co...categoryid=113

The prices shown are just list price. The real prices (lower) will show up when the cameras are available for ordering.

Good luck.

[Rick]

Originally Posted by andyz

As it happens my wife took my 6 year old Canon P&S on a trip and returned home without it. So I find myself in the market as well. I use it for snapshots and short videos. I want it to use a CF card, for compatibility, but that isn't a deal breaker.

Is shutter lag a problem of the past, or should I really test a P&S hands on before buying it?

Shutter lag was tops on my list when I was in the market a few months ago when I bought my Lumix TZ5 from B&H. Prior to that I had always bought Canon. However, I grew very tired of missing shots due to the shutter lag. Understandably, on any P&S one just has to deal with it, but I found that one of selling features of the TZ5 was a lack of excessive shutter lag time. After I bought it a put it through some paces and found that it does indeed have a pretty short lag time between photos.

Rick

[Westx]

Check out this link to see a comparison of the Canon G10 vs Hasselblad H2 with Phase One P45+ back

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml

Speaks wonder of the G10.

[johnastovall]

Ricoh GR-DII stick a CV 28/35 mini finder on it and you are set. It's a photographer's P&S.

[Comanche]

I bought a Canon G10 as a Christmas present to myself - and am very happy with it. It is not cheap, however, and a bit on the bulky side. It may be a bit of overkill if she just wants a plain P&S. I am currently on a working trip to Viet Nam, and though my SLR gets the real work, the G10 has been used a fair amount of the time.

Plusses: Image quality in good light is superb, ability to use a "big" flash (580 EX) is very useful, very little shutter lag (some, but faster than any other P&S I've seen), good battery life, all the manual settings and other controls you are used to with an slr, built like a tank.

Cons: Anything above ISO 200 gets a bit noisy, the viewfinder is useless, a bit on the bulky side (thank goodness for cargo pants)

Hope this helps - -

[playbak]

You're in luck. DPReview just did a whole series on compact cameras. Here's the link:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q408premiumgroup/

This one covers premium, but they have a couple of other roundups for budget, compact and specialty. Pretty comprehensive and will give you a great view of what features are availabe at what price point. Once you narrow it down, you can start getting good feedback on personal experience.