[Leica] Digital P&S advice sought

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 2:39 PM -0400 6/16/05, A. Lal wrote:
>Hello Everyone,
>
>I'd like to buy a general purpose digital point and shoot camera. 
>Will  a model in  the 4-5 Mega-pixel range be adequate for making 
>prints to 5 x 7 inches?  If so, can list members recommend any 
>particular models? I'd like to keep it under $ 300, if at all 
>possible.
>
>I'd prefer a camera that will store RAW or TIFF files.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Regards,
>Akhil
>
>P. S:- I don't want to buy a digital system SLR just yet.

Many decent P&S exist, but good ones are scarce. 4-5 Mp is sufficient 
for good 5x7's, but 5-7 are needed for reasonable 8x10's.

You have to check them out. Some are ergonomically terrible, but 
YMMV. The little Canon SD300 to 500 are samll, fast, and produce 
excellent quality for their size, but are fully automatic with some 
overrides. The Panasonic FM-7 has image stabilization, a huge screen 
but no optical viewfinder so shooting in bright sunlight can be 
difficult. Some Sonys are excellent except they use the silly 
MemorySticks, which is a definite downside.

One that has caught my eye, and would be my preferred choice at the 
moment is the Fuji F-10, about $325 for a 6 Mp camera, but the thing 
that stands out about it is the availibility of useable 1600ISO. 
Almost all others top out at 400, and 200 is actually the highest 
useable for many.

See:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilmf10zoom/

It's fast, great image quality, good battery life, and can be used in 
low light. It also means that the flash has a reasonable range, which 
many P&S' don't.

Downsides are: uninspired styling, no optical viewfinder, some clunky 
menus and clumsy charger. It still gets my vote.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
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