Cecilia and I are looking for a replacement subcompact camera. We are considering the Nikon Coolpix S8000.

We'd like something $200-$300 in price with some wiggle room. It is important to us to keep the camera small enough to slide in our pocket while travelling, have a good zoom (8x or better) good megapixels (10+) image stabilization. The ability to take video is important. HD isn't important to us. Besides, we don't even have a television, let alone anything with HD capability!



Just want a good point and shoot camera to replace our Elph which is battered and ancient at this point.

 

I highly recommend the Canon S95 if you can swing the extra expense. I've been using the older S90 model for a while now and have nothing but positive things to say about it. It doesn't have the extra zoom you're looking for but it's not bad. Most compact cameras are pretty much useless on the far end of the zoom spectrum anyways.

An alternative would be the Sony WX5 which has been getting positive reviews. I have the older version and think it's a great camera too.

 

http://shop.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs...0051_252864_-1

I got my wife one of these little canon ones with a huge zoom on it a couple years ago and I like it a lot. It doesn't take as good of photos in lower light situations as my DSLR due to the small sensor, but it does great outdoors. It is also very portable.

 

That's not compact...that's HUGE!

 

http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-e...702#tabsection

I picked this little camera out for my sister. She seems to really be enjoying it as it takes good pictures, and I was very impressed with the video quality.

 

We have a canon SX200IS, not exactly tiny but not that big either. Picture quality is awesome and I love the 12X zoom.

 

I have been a Nikon user for many years. I also wanted a small camera to take with me to Switzerland in September as a back up for my Nikon D300. I also looked at the Nikon Coolpix S8000 wanting to stay with Nikon. However, after searching through reviews I found the camera was not up to what I expected. After much research I did find a few that would work and settled on the Lumix DMC-ZS7. I did shoot it some in Switzerland and was really pleased with the pictures the little camera produced. The video was good and it shoots at a wide angle of 25mm and 300mm on the long side. I will be going back to Asia in about a month and as of now I think I will leave my DSLR at home and just take the Lumix.

 

I'm also a longtime Nikon user too. I wanted a small camera to bring around with me when I travel even though I still bring my D700 and sometimes D300 on trips. I tried just about everything, Sony, Leica, Panasonic, etc. but the camera that really came through with spades was surprisingly Canon. IMHO they make the best small cameras in the world. Panasonic has poor ergonomics I think. Right now, the best small camera on the market is the S95.

 

I think he said small....

You guys are giving him large point and shoot cameras.

I think Sony and Canon are your best bet. Pick the smallest one with the biggest lens.

 

Panasonic Lumix

 

That's going in my sig forever!

 

The manufacturers all tend to leapfrog each other as the models change every few months. I'd look for a few things- not just pixel density but also frames per second. The second is now more important than the first. I don't much care if I'm 10m or 12m, but I do care if I can shoot moving cars at 10 frames a second versus 4. They almost all have video now and some are moving from 720p to 1080p. While this may not seem important now, think about ten years from now when you've stored all that baby footage on a hard drive and you want it to look nice when it will mean a hell of a lot more to you than it does now.

I've had really good luck with three brands, Sony, Canon, and Nikon. Still, they all change so fast that I'd not rely on any particular brand, but instead go to Best Buy and see what feature set exists for the $$ you want to spend. Me, frames per second is what I care about. I can't stand waiting between action shots for the camera to finish processing a frame.

 

I have been impressed with the Panasonic Lumix series... I guess the ZS7 is the current model. The low light performance is pretty impressive for a $250 camera.

 

David Pogue ranted and raved about how awesome the S95 was (in fact, he wrote a love letter to it. LOL)

 

LOL! I just did a search and found it. It's an entertaining read!

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/...r-to-a-camera/