Which camera should I buy?

So I'm finally tired of my old sony, and looking to upgrade to something fairly decent.





Budget

No more than 200 or so

Size

Does not need to be ULTRA slim, but needs to be fairly pocketable

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you? At least 6

What optical zoom will you need? Standard

How important is “image quality” to you? 8

Do you care for manual exposure modes (shutter priority, aperture priority, manual)? Noob in this department.. lol

General Usage

What will you generally use the camera for? Taking Pictures out Doors and inside, just overall everyday usage inside and out.

Will you be making big prints of your photos or not? Not really mostly just sending to friends and upping to my computer followed by occasionally printing some pictures

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos? Sometimes

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos? Sometimes

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate? NO

Are there particular models you already have in mind? Yes, I have been looking on the samsungs, Nikons, and sony cameras under 200$

Do you need any of the following special features? Image Stabilization would be a nice feature, also being able to remove red on on the camera and be able to have different photo modes like black and white and stuff


THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THAT THE CAMERA NEEDS TO TAKE VIDEOS WITH SOUND, The videos need to be decent quality, since i like taking quad videos and things, so it needs to be able to record at fast speeds..


Thanks for the help..

I know this is the camcorder section, but i was told i may get help for my digi cam questions..

$200 might be tough to get good quality with Optical Image Stabilization. (EIS Electronic Image Stabilization lowers the quality of your pics.)

The Canon 570IS (Be sure and get Optical Image Stabilization) is good.

I like Canon, then Panasonic. They both have good models with OIS. Costco has a good Panny for about $200 (instore). I think it has OIS but I'm not sure. (The Panny I saw had the best Redeye removal I've ever seen.
I can't tell which has good video ability. I have a Canon S3IS (about $350) and it has excellent video capabilities. And it can record very high quality sound only Stereo. As well as Video w/sound.

I don't like Sony just because they are so proprietary. But they are fine cameras. I have a Nikon and it is good but not as good as the Canon. (Either Canon, my wife has a Canon SD800IS and she loves it.) Her Canon has a wider angle than most cameras and it is VERY helpful, especially indoors. Look for cameras that have a zoom range that starts well below 6mm. The SD800 is 4.6mm and the S3IS is 6.0mm. Most cameras are around 6.0mm for the low end of the zoom.

Good luck.

Which camera should I buy?

So I'm finally tired of my old sony, and looking to upgrade to something fairly decent.


Budget

No more than 200 or so



I don't think you will find anything decent for that price. If your Sony still works, keep using it. It will probably work better than a $200 camcorder. Especially in low light.

I was going to get the samsung that Sams carries for $199. But I did some research and found that basically all low end camcorders have fairly poor picture quality, and even worse indoors.

What I figured out was that you can get a good quality camcorder for just over $400. The Panasonic PV-GS320 is $429 at Circuit City. It has very good picture quality because it has a 3 CCD imaging system. This will give you much better videos than a $200 camcorder for not much more. It has image stabalization and a built in 3MP camera feature.

I know it's more than $200, but if you are already using a decent camcorder then I don't think you will like what you will get with a cheap 680,000 pixel, single CCD camcorder.

I could be wrong though. Good luck.