Need Camera buying help

[irocnrobin]

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? 500-800

Size

* What size camera are you looking for? Or does size not matter at all to you?
Preferably small

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you? above 4

* What optical zoom will you need? (None, Standard = 3x-4x, Ultrazoom = 10x-12x, Other - Specify) Ultra or Wide Lens

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10) 10

Do you care for manual controls? I do like to use them

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for? pics of dogs, drag racing, cars

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not? Not bigger than 8x10

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos? Some indoor and quite a bit of outdoor/nite racing pics
Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos? Yes

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate? I have a Canon Powershot S400 now that I love.


(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD) I do need Wide Angle and Image Stabilization.

I need to be able to do short videos too that I can take clips from. Also, I am looking for something that has the shortest shutter delay for good motion shots.

Thanks in advance guys!
Robin

[coldrain]

You want small, light, ultra zoom, wide angle, good movie mode, image stabilization, no shutter lag.

The logical option seems to be the Canon Powershot S2 IS, with a wideangle convertor. It does have very small shutterlag, good quality photos, ultra zoom with IS, one of the best movie modes available, and it is quite compact compared to some other ultrazooms (fuji 5200/9500, panasonic fz20/30).

And it does have manual controls. The FZ20/30 Panasonics are bigger and bulkier, noisier in the image, lesser movie mode and more expensive wide angle convertor lenses. I do not know how much the Sony DSC-H1's wideangle convertor would set you back, but after the Canon S2 IS it is the next best compact UZ choice. Also the Canon has the nicest movable lcd screen, really cool.

So I think the S2 IS should be a good choice, looking down your list of wishes. The wide angle convertor will cost you between 100-150$, i am not totally sure.

[swgod98]

I think higher ISO (800 maybe 1600) is going to help more than IS for those night action captures...?