Hey Rick,
I’m no pro picture taker, but I work with two if you want their opinion. I gotta tell ya though……I’ve seen their gear and I won’t lug it around.
I’ve wasted literally thousands of dollars on gadgets, including cameras thinking I’d actually use them. On the "wasted money list" is 5 grand worth of Nikon gear collecting dust that I’ll probably sell. My biggest complaint with cameras, is If it’s too big, it stays at home.
So I’d recommend you forgo all the bells and whistles and get something that you can drop in a pocket or hang around your neck. You’ll take it with you wherever you go and take a gazillion pictures if it’s handy and easy to use. At lest that’s what I do. My little camera goes everywhere I go and I actually use it. But don’t get too carried away with size. Too small is not a good thing either. If they’re too small, believe it or not, it’s difficult to take a picture with them. They get so small that it’s difficult to keep the little buggers steady while taking a shot. Plus, the friggin buttons are too small for fat fingers. The ultra compacts fall in the too small category for me. Compacts are about right.
Besides the actual size, second to me is zoom. I’d get no less than a 5X optical zoom.
After that, look at battery life. Don’t matter to me what type or if they are proprietary, so long as it lasts a long time.
Them comes video capability. It’s pretty cool to take a 30 second video from time to time. Like when your son is catching some air on that thumper…..
Lastly, look at picture speed. Nothing more irritating than missing a shot because the stupid thing is still storing the last image. Some cameras take shots as fast as you push the button, others think, and think, and think, and you miss the shot.
I’ve got a pentax optio 555 – a 5X, 5 mega pixel, and I bought my girlfriend one of those little weather resistant Olympus stylus units (410 I think) – a 3X, 4 mega pixel. If the Olympus was a 5X, it’d be about perfect for me. The pentax is just a tad too big and way too slow. Both take wonderful pictures, but her Olympus is the one we grab whenever we go somewhere.
I’ve also bought close to twenty of the little buggers for my department at work. Nothing better than a picture to tell a story with an email, so I encourage my team to use them. I also let them pick out their own. That being said, I haven’t seen any that I like better than the Olympus, or Pentax.
There’s a couple pretty good review sights that you ought to spend some time looking over.
Dave’s sight is one that my two pro buddies like. This sight seems to be the most impartial without the BS. http://www.imaging-resource.com/
Another good one is…
http://www.dpreview.com/
hope that's some help. .........mike
