I’m trying really hard to decide for a digital camera… this sucks.

Well, unfortunately there is no perfect camera. Features I’d want are:

use NiMH batteries. They are cheap and work just fine. And I can use them for all kind of different stuff, starting with my bike lights. (I rarely use my digital camera and my bike lights at the same time…) - No expensive, proprietary LiIon batteries please, even if everyone wants LiIon, they weight a few grams less and are a little smaller.

Reasonable optical zoom. I had a 1.3 megapixel camera with 3x zoom earlier. I loved that camera (from olympus), and it did really great pictures. Usually better than most 3 megapixel cams I’ve seen. But I often had motives (like animals) where I would have liked to have a better zoom. That was why our next camera had a 8x or 10x zoom. Since my mother uses the camera a lot, I couldn’t take it with me to the U.S.
But with high megapixel numbers (and a suiteable good optics, of course) digital zoom can be useful: If you have a 8 Megapixel camera, you can add a 2x digital zoom and still have a real resolution of 2 Megapixel.

Good low-light performance. I like making photos without the annoying flash. Unfortunately, indoors light is often not sufficient and images start to get noisy. One thing I liked with the old 1.3 Megapixel Olympus was that the pictures had no noise at all but were sharp. I miss that with many newer cameras.

Add-on filters. I’d love to toy around with filters such as polarization filters. So I’d like to have a camera where I can attach them.

Memory card format. We’ve had a SmartMedia and now a xD Picture card camera. I’d prefer not getting another format… xD is now reasonably priced. I’ve heard good things about Sony, but I dislike their Memory Stick. It has an “lexmark ink cardridge” feeling with it…

Speed. Startup time and focus time are important for me. Shooting fast photographs makes pictures more real. And since I love spontane smiles…

Price. I’m not a pro photographer. I’m just a geek who’d like to have a new toy. It shouldn’t be too expensive; I’m probably more price aware than most geeks, still not having a mp3 harddisk player and no pda, because I think they are way to expensive for their little benefit to me (over using a cheap $30 mp3-cd-player and remembering the important appointments and storing them in a normal PC).

Size. While a big camera has a better shooting experience etc. I’d also like to be able to carry the camera around all the time, without a big bag. I don’t like squeezing things into my pockets, but having a belt bag is okay. But it shouldn’t get into my way, like many do because of their size. Metallic housings are good, because what broke with the good old 1.3 Megapixel camera was actually the plastic housing hooks of the battery case.

What I do not care about: Movie mode, audio recording. IMHO, such recordings are crap and waste of memory. ;-) - this direct-printing thing. I only want to load the images to my computer using usb-storage. Oh, and I really do not care about included windows software.

Well, with my research and the requirements (maybe fortunately the filter ring requirement narrowed down the search a lot) I basically have five options left:

Fujifilm Finepix E550. 6.6 Megapixels and a 4x zoom. The special “SuperCCD” chip apprently improves the cameras effective resolution a bit. Size is okay, the price with below $300 is fine too. In tests it was mentioned that a lot of minor things can be annoying. Uses AA NiMH batteries. Filter ring available. But in one test, noise could have been better, and image compression had issues, too (albeit Fujifilm should be able to solve these with a firmware update maybe?)

Fujifilm S-5100. This SLR-looking camera has only 4 Megapixel, but a 10x optical zoom and can handle filters. But its slow startup and bulky. Noise is an issue, too. Uses AA and xD. Price is also below $300.

Casio Exilim P600. While the exilim cameras are really pretty and small, this “pro” variant is bigger and has some odd design changes. Still a good housing. 6 Megapixels, 4x optical zoom and fast startup are nice. I’d prefer not having LiIon batteries though, and I don’t have any SD card yet. The included remote control is unique. Picture quality apparently is very good and noise well under control (i.e. a tad better than the others, none of which is bad), autofocus excellent.

Canon Powershot S70. Has just come into my attention recently. 7.1 Megapixel and 3.6x Zoom starting at a wide angle, so only going up to 3x. Lens quality is very good, CF is cheap but LiIon. Lens adapter available but huge and bulky. A pity it doesn’t have to powershot typical turn-around screen. Remote control optional. Noisy in low light.

Canon Powershot G6. Expensive, 7.1 Megapixel, 4x zoom. CF, LiIon. With the nice turn-around screen, and dspite using the same chip as above camera handles noise better. Noticeably bigger and heavier than most competitors (such as the exilim p700) and slow startup.

Best Prices I’ve found for my kit (with some filters and 512 MB, bag, additional batteries) are:

  • E550: $ 486 at digitalfotoclub.comA ($ 508 at adorama)
  • S5100: $ 480 at digitalfotoclub.com ($ 490 at adorama)
  • P600: $ 590 at adorama
  • S70: $ 635 at digitalfotoclub.com ($ 630 at adorama)
  • G6: $ 833 at digitalfotoclub.com ($ 826 at adorama)