Matroskin

Dear Fodories!
I have a nice Nikon D40 which takes wonderful pictures and I love it... BUT sometimes it is too inconvenient to take it (BIG and BULKY) everywhere, especially for a night out or just stroll in the park.
I'm looking for a compact camera that fits into my purse and still take a nice pictures (I know - maybe I'm asking too much). It does not have to be super with 10 MP, 4-5 is enough.

I was looking at
Kodac M863,
Casio EXILIM Zoom Z20,
Nikon CoolpixS550
Olympus FE350

The reason I choose those -- they are all on sale in the local store.

Any other suggestions? Comments?
Do you own camera that you love?

Please help!

hetismij

I will just say that a small camera will take very noisy photos at night - due to the size of the sensor and the way the photos are processed in camera.
Have a look at dpreview and read what they say. Don't treat everything as gospel that they say but it can give you an idea of the photos these cameras take.
Try them out in the local store, handle them - is one more comfortable, more logical than the others? What memory cards do they take, will you have to buy a different type to those you already have? The Olympus for instance probably takes XD cards instead of SD cards which would mean buying different cards for it. What type of batteries do they take?
All things to consider, in addition to photo quality.
Alternatively have a look at the jill-e range of camera bags (www.jill-e.com) - they look like purses and will hold you D40 and all the other stuff you want to carry, thereby giving you the best of both worlds1

Ozziez

Hi matroskin

I have just bought my son a Fujifilm Finepix Z20. It has 10MP, 3 x Optical Zoom and a 2.5" LCD.

It is small, takes great photos, and has a rechargable battery.

It cost $200 Australian.

The camera comes in a variety of tendy colours and looks attractive. I bought a black one.

Hope this helps.

Ozziez

I meant "trendy" not "tendy".

I haven't noticed that it is noisy at night and it takes SDHC or XD picture cards.

As Hetismij suggests, try some out in your local store and see how they feel.

nancy1652

I love my Olympus FE-280. Very small, takes great pictures, and I can turn the shutter sound off so it makes no noise. It's 8 megapixels with a zoom. It was under $200 when I bought it less than a year ago. Recharges easily here in Paris.

Kristina

Since you already have a Nikon, I would recommened the Nikon Coolpix. I've had two of those and recently got the D40x which I love.
If you stick with Nikon, all the symbols and functions on the camera are basically the same and they will probably both use SD cards so you will be able to swap/share media.
I agree that photos at night with the smaller camera will be a challenge. I just took some fab ones in Paris with the d40x, ones I would have never been able to take with my older coolpix.

Bailey

I agree with Kristina.
I have a Nikon D80 and a Nikon Coolpix P4.
I've been very happy with both cameras. I use the Coolpix when I'm tired of carrying the D80 or if I don't want to be as obvious.
The other great thing is that my Coolpix will take videos.
Oh and both of my cameras use the same memory cards.

I've been very pleased with the quality of my images.
You'll love having a small camera.

If you have time check out my blog....the galleries on the upper right hand corner....'My Gallery' "Pbase Gallery'...the images are from both of my cameras.
http://baileyzimmerman.blogspot.com

kelliebellie

I LOVE the Canon Elph lines. Most are under $300 and they have the image stabilization so no blurry pictures ever! The image quality is amazing.

bdjtbenson

I think it's all about the optics. I have always liked Canon and Nikon cameras. The Sony has Carl Seisz optics and is supposed to be very good.

I'm using an Olympus now because it has 5x optical zoom. It's a good camera, maybe not quite as good as my Nikon coolpix was but the added zoom gives me more flexibility.

Robespierre

Digital Photography 101

"Noise" refers to artifacts in the image resulting from the camera's efforts to capture the image in marginal light conditions. To do this, the electronics attempt to maximize image exposure by slowing down the scan speed and increasing the aperture. Both of these produce undesirable effects in the image.

It has nothing to do with audible noise of the shutter simulation.

Notice that hetismij refers to the size of the sensor and the way the photos are processed in the camera as being related to noise in the picture.

isabel

I love my Panasonic FZ18 (and the FZ8 I had before it). It's not a pocket sized camera (it's a "prosumer" size) but it's extremely lightweight and I think takes pics as good as my Canon Rebel DSLR. I've had other prosumer camera also - Nikon, Olympus and Minolta and the Panasonic FZ 18 is by far the best - and also by far the cheapest and the lightest. I'm even thinking of selling the SLR, I never use it anymore. It fits well in a medium sized pocketbook. If you want to compare images I've taken with this camera to others, my photos are at: www.pbase.com/annforcier.The Budapest and Vienna ones are almost entirely with this camera. I also carry a tiny Canon elph as back up, and that fits in my pocket and it's pretty good too, but nothing compares to the Panasonic.

dmlove

My daughter and I both have Casio Exilims and my son has a Canon digital Elph. We all like our own cameras. No question, they take better (great) pictures outdoors in sunlight than indoors in lamplight, or nighttime, but that's the nature of the beast.

Also, I noticed recently that there are some very very small cameras, hardly bigger than mine, that have 10X optical zoom (ours are all 3X optical zoom). If I were getting a new one, I'd go for that (my first digital camera had 10x optical zoom, but it was so bulky I finally got rid of it in favor of a pocket camera).

If you want to see some pictures taken with the Exilims, I can send you a link to our photos (from our recent Egypt trip) on Picasa.

RM67

The Panasonic Leica range is teeny-weeny and has great battery life. The scene modes are also quite good if you are feeling lazy (especially the ariel and night modes, which are crap on most cameras). But I don't think it meters light particularly well indoors.

My favourites are from the Canon range - I think the Powershot and 'G' lines are absolutely fab.

nukesafe

I posted my recommendation on another thread, so at the risk of repeating myself:

I just got a Olympus 1010 digital camera on eBay for under $150. It has 10.1mp, has a 7x optical zoom plus digital zoom that goes to 35x, and has image stabilization so you don't get the blurries so bad from shaking at high magnification. It also has a feature called "Fine Zoom", which (it says) lets you zoom up to 40x without losing clarity, as it crops the picture so you do not lose pixels.

These are reconditioned cameras that have been returned to Olympus, and come with a full guarantee. I just got mine, it works perfectly, and doesn't have a scratch on it (yet).