Help me pick a camera! I am looking for ultra thin pocket sized cameras. Currently the Canon SD450 or 550, Casio XLim 500, or one of the Sony's are my top runners.

I don't like sony on principle of proprietary memory and I've read iffy reviews about picture quality. What else is on the market I should be looking at? 400ish is my price point, but of course, cheaper is better...

Help me pick a camera! I am looking for ultra thin pocket sized cameras. Currently the Canon SD450 or 550, Casio XLim 500, or one of the Sony's are my top runners.

I don't like sony on principle of proprietary memory and I've read iffy reviews about picture quality. What else is on the market I should be looking at? 400ish is my price point, but of course, cheaper is better...


I went shopping with my dad for a dig cam before Christmas and ended up getting the Cannon SD450 for him. Some of his criterias were to be able to slip in his pocket, rechargable Lithium battery (a must in my book) and take pretty decent pictures. I just saw this on circuit cities website for 319.99 + tax.

Just a little background on myself. I do photo retouching for one of the big three auto companies and am use to seeing flawless, crystal clear pictures to be placed in magazine and catalogs. For bright outdoor shots, this camera puts out about 90-95% what I am use to seeing. The indoor shots are more like 80-85% to being perfect (slightly noisy pics). This camera is very easy to use, due to it picking up several white balance areas and the auto focus feature.

In conclusion,

If you need something that is very compact, decent pictures, ease of use and rechargable batteries, I would recommend this from personally seeing the pictures.

Any other questions, let me know.

Edit - I had a Sony Cyber Shot and the thought the quality sucked big time. I traded it in for dsc500(I think,3 years ago) and it had the Carl Zeuss lens on it, which made the pictures a lot clearer. My current Sony was twice the size and more money than the cyber shot, but I preferred the nicer quality pictures over being compact. Now I am getting in the phase of wanting something compact so I can bring it with me everywhere. I wish I could find something with clarity of my sony along with the compactness of my dads Cannon.

Brian

Thanks for the note brian, you basically confirmed what I had been thinking. Do check out the Canon SD550. My Dad got one of those and my friend got a 450, noticeable picture quality difference, 550 is a bit thicker however.

I'll second what he said. My old 2 megapixel Sony (back when digi cams were pretty new) had pretty bad quality compared to other 2 MP cams. I have a Kodak, but my next digi cam will be a Canon.

I'd stick with either the SD450 or 550. Buy the best one you can afford. My next one will be a 450, upgrading from an SD110. I've seen the 450s as low as 250 on sale recently. That's a lot of camera for the $ IMO.

i dont know what you guys dont like about the sonys, they are rated among the best. I have had 2, and i liked em both. Did a lot of comparing and reading of reviews and the sony was better. check out www.imaging-resource.com and do some comparisons, and you will find the sonys are pretty damn good. That being said though the canons and olympus are pretty good too. Just dont get a kodak, HP, or a fuji.. they suck.

Hey paranoid.. the new compact sonys have the superHAD CCD's (Same CCD's found in HD Videocameras) and the Zeiss lenses now.. I have a p100 and i love it, but the new p200 is even nicer.
Dr.

i dont know what you guys dont like about the sonys, they are rated among the best. I have had 2, and i liked em both. Did a lot of comparing and reading of reviews and the sony was better. check out www.imaging-resource.com and do some comparisons, and you will find the sonys are pretty damn good. That being said though the canons and olympus are pretty good too. Just dont get a kodak, HP, or a fuji.. they suck.

Hey paranoid.. the new compact sonys have the superHAD CCD's (Same CCD's found in HD Videocameras) and the Zeiss lenses now.. I have a p100 and i love it, but the new p200 is even nicer.
Dr.

I noticed that last time I was at Circuit City for $290.00, plus it is 7.2 megapixel. I may have to give one of these a try. If I don't like it, I could always take it back and put the refund towards a new dlp tv. No point in paying the 15% restocking fee. lol, see how marriage makes us think:D