Hi neapolitan,

A digital camera ain't worth nothin' if the lenses are of poor quality.

Be aware of distortion at both full wide angle and full zoom. Also be aware of colored halos around lights.

As noted above, you can make up for a 3x or 4x zoom if you have high MPx, but you have to have some facility with using the photo software.

At the moment I am considering Panasonic FZ5 and FZ7, Canon S2 and Sony H1. These are all 12X with Image Stabilizer, and all in the $300- 350 range.

Although, I do like my Canon A60.

((I))

DO NOT buy the canon SD550 unless you want to spend hours in photoshop fixing red eye. the red-eye reduction does not work at all. not a good point and shoot camera and very delicate.

There is a good point about keeping pictures for "posterity". I have copied my photos to CDs and now DVDs. You do have to keep copying to the next new medium, whatever it will now be. I am getting ready to copy to an external hard drive. There is now some debate about how long CDs and DVDs will last.
When I have a trip or family event I select and copy my digital pictures (cropped and corrected, etc.) to a CD and take it to Costco to be printed.

And there is the added benefit that I am not dealing with stacks and boxes of photos many of which are not real good but I just can't throw away. And for sharing your trip with family, you can send them a CD or DVD.

One thing to remember about image stabilization -- it's not a cure all. You will be able to shoot at a slower speed than you normally can, perhaps as much as two stops, but eventually the shake will catch up with you. That is one of the problems with high-powered zoom lenses. At the long end the maximum aperture is quite small, requiring a longer exposure, introducing shake -- even with IS. The other problem is that it is difficult to build a quality lens that can zoom to more than three or four times its original focal length.

The only real solution is unpalatable to most people -- a dslr with heavy, expensive, interchangeable lenses.

If you take land and sea scapes, or shoot in cities, or interiors, you may find that wide angle is what you really want. Unfortunately, few P&S cameras have a lens wider than 35mm. I have an old Ricoh film P&S which has a 28mm.

My suggestion is to go with a camera which has no more than a 3 or 4 optical zoom. Look for low "f" numbers. The lower the number the wider the aperture and the faster the lens. This is typically expressed in a range, say 3.5-5.6. The first number refers to the aperture at the widest angle, the second at the longest telephoto.

dpreview is an excellent site, as is photo.net.

I_am_kane -

thanks for the web site recommendation - great information

teaberry,

How nice of you...you're welcome

Image stablilization in digitals has more to do with being able to take pictures in the 10X OPTICAL zoom range and hold the camera still through the lag time inherent to digitals. While the advice about long shutter times is true I think that, in reality, there are VERY few people using digitals that shoot on aperture priority--mostly auto settings. I still love the capability of shooting with the longer lens.