Here's a bit of a heads-up (or, depending on your viewpoint, blatant advertising - sorry).
First a bit of history. Mrs A has a tiny Olympus XA3 to stick in her pocket as a snappy camera. It takes great pictures but recently, and for the second time, the shutter packed up. Rather than repair it again we thought it was about time for her to get into digital. So I looked around and did a bit of research.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/ - 'A'-list value camera is the Canon A80 (was A70)
http://www.robgalbraith.com/ - a professional photographers' forum - check out the compact cameras forum for what they use - as often as not the Canon A70.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/ - a professional photographer's site - check out the how-to best compact camera - the Canon A60, A70 and A80.
Get the message yet?
http://www.steves-digicams.com/ - has loads of extensive reviews of digital cameras. These Canons rate very well. In particular look at the sample shots and videos.
While looking at all this information I noted that these cameras are all very similar. The differences can be summarised:
A60 - 2 megapixels, 320x240 video
A70 - 3 megapixels, 640x480 video
A80 - 4 megapixels, 320x240 video, flip out LCD
I checked out some prices at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/
A60 - £129.99 - now down to £99.99! !!
A70 - £209.99
A80 - £269.29
Even at £130 it was a bargain so I bought the A60. Okay you
can get more megapixels for less money but ths is a Canon we are talking about and so far it's been fantastic.
Other places you might want to check out:
http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/c...03_ps-a60.html - Canon's info page.
http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/a70-60/index.html - another Canon info page.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0302/03...anona60a70.asp - an independent review.
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ca...ew/index.shtml - another independent review.
http://www.somacon.com/docs/canon_a60/ - an individual amateur user's review.
http://www.pbase.com/dickie/a70_tests - some sample shots by a professional photographer (stunning).
For me some big plus points are that it uses Compact Flash (the most versatile format and as used by
all professional cameras) and standard AA cells (so I can use my NiMH rechargables).
If you don't have them already, you might also want to allow for:
1) a compact case (£18 for the official one is pretty steep)
2) two sets of four AA NiMH rechargable cells and a fast charger
3) a larger Compact Flash card