What to buy, and why?

People keep asking me (me? why?) what kind of camera to buy. Well, I went ahead and after years of waffling decided to go deeper into debt by purchasing a Point-and-Shoot (P&S) digicam for myself. Apart from bragging that I have a new toy, I'll explain why I picked what I did, in hopes it helps others decide.

What I wanted was a small camera I could carry with me to places when I didn't want to lug the digital SLR. It had to be at least three megapixels, but that was about the only set criteria. It also had to be as affordable as reasonably possible. I had set about $350 as my maximum, and ended up spending about $260. (I paid extra for speedy shipping; otherwise Amazon's shipping was free.)

With digital cameras, I'm hard pressed to recommend anything but Canon these days. Their digital SLRs, with the Rebel XT, have an unbeatable price point, and the quality is just as good as Nikon's and Fuji's. With P&S cameras Canon has long been the leader of the pack, by putting very advanced image processing, exposure and AF features even into cheapo-cams. So, from the get-go I more or less stuck to the PowerShot series.

If size isn't of importance, the A-series is by far the best bang for the buck one can find. I did, however, want something smaller, so went looking further. The SD-series, (SD300, most notably) is very slick. It's small, stylish, has really good performance, and a large LCD. The SD20 is dramatically tiny and has a good lens, for those that want a really small camera--alas, the SD20 is somewhat lacking in speed, which bothered me.

The SD300, objectively, is what I would've picked, all things being equal. It fits the price point, and it's a really good camera for the size and money. Alas, it uses SD memory cards--so I would have to buy one. (The cameras all come with memory cards, but they're unly borderline useful due to their tiny capacity.) The S series on the other hand uses CompactFlash cards, which I already own. They're slightly bigger and heavier cameras, but I figured that for the savings it's worth it. Also, the S410 has a larger sensor than the SD-series. Apart from megapixels (resolution), the size of the sensor matters. The larger it is, the larger the lens and camera, and the heavier it is. However, as the sensor size grows (while keeping the pixel count the same), the noise decreases. So, I figured I'd get somewhat better picture quality, especially at high sensitivities (ISO 400), at the price of a slight size increase.

Currently, my general recommendation is the Canon SD300 (or higher models, if you have the cash) for small, fashionable cameras, and the A-series for just a general snappy camera. As said, all of Canon's cameras include the same image processing and high-performance electronics, so you're not loosing in quality either way. I decided that since I could get the S410 for about $50 less, and save another $50 in memory card, the smaller LCD and size increase was worth it, in particular since there might be a slight increase in picture quality as well.

Experiences so far

I've been very happy with the camera. First, both the S and SD series have metal cases. They look good, they feel solid, and the tactile quality of the material is nice. Presumably it also adds to durability. The camera boots up fast, menus and playback are speedy, and all controls and buttons make sense. This all I got from the reviews I had read ahead of time, as well as the surprisingly accurate autofocus and exposure and general image quality.

What surprised me was the amount of advanced features these cameras have. Flash exposure lock, automatic image orientation sensor and histogram display in image post-view are things I wish my digital SLR had! There is no traditional manual control over shutter speed and aperture; however, the camera has a pretty decent range for automatic settings, and so far I haven't found that I wanted anything more. Pretty much everything else is settable, from sensitivity to AF to metering to white balance. On the gadget side, you can change the startup picture and various noises the thing makes, downloading your own if you'd prefer. It has a microphone and speaker for perfectly web-postable movies. It has AF lock, AE lock, and is capable of taking over two pictures / second for as long as your memory card has space. They also have night photography modes, where you can manually set shutter times from about a second to fifteen seconds. Thanks to noise reduction, the images are surprisingly good.

The camera also came with a big pile of manuals, which I like. Besides, although using the camera out of the box was no problem, reading the manual definitely paid off in finding all those little neat things it does. Apart from the manuals, it comes with good software. The ZoomBrowser EX is the same picture management suite that comes with their digital SLRs. It also comes with an application to do basic movie editing with the movies you shoot! (The applications are for Windows and Mac, incidentally.)

Let's see... Autofocus is not as fast as I could wish, nor is the shutter lag as short as I had hoped. On the other hand, exposure is very accurate, and in particular flash exposure rocks my socks. Picture quality is what I expected: good, but obviously not able to threaten the domain of digital SLRs.

Finally, another reason for favoring Canon is that the accessories for the camera are nifty. You can find replacement batteries and chargers a few years down the road with much higher likelyhood than you could for less-prestigious brands. The S series also has a remarkably good underwater housing, if that's a concern, and some random other gadgets, such as a car battery charger. Firmware upgrades are also produced for these cameras, and can be done easily by the user. Also, the battery charger that comes with the camera is nifty in that it's cordless; it plugs directly into the outlet, with fold-away prongs.

So, in sum, nobody will be safe from me now that I have a camera that I can carry with my at all times! :-)