I need to decide..Kodak v550, Sony W7, Fuji f10 or Nikon 7900, please help!

[mcnev]

Hello board, i am a new member, and by looking through the board it seems like there is plenty of good advice going around.
I am looking to purchase a digital camera very soon.

Initially I had my heart set on a Kodak v550, liking its smart styling, big LCD screen, and small size, but looking around, it seems i can get more for my money as in regards quality of image if i shop around.

Looking around various website reviews, I have created a shortlist of cameras that seem to be very popular, they seem to be:
Sony W7
Nikon coolpix 7900
fujifilm f10

Ideally I would like a camera that is easy to use, be able to take a good photo in the dark as well as great day time shots(inside and out), as I like to take it to bars and clubs. If taking it out with me for a night out, it needs to be not too big.

A friend of mine has the sony W5 (the lil brother of the w7) and it produces some great shots....and i can now get the W7 for what he paid originally for his W5.

Or is the Kodak v550 very good too? Judging by the shots ive seen taken with it, they come out good, but not as good as the above list.

I would be very interested in your views on the above list, all feedback would be welcome.

I need tomake a decision soon, as the girlfriend (who's buying me one for xmas) is driving me mad! :)
Its a shame Kodak, don't produce the v550 in a 7megapixel version. :(

Thanks!

[sjseto]

Hi there,

I have the Fuji F10 and am very happy witih it, especially it's ability to capture images at higher ISO's with little noise. This abilitiy comes in very handy when trying to take pictures without flash in less-than-ideal lighting. In certain shots there are some problems with purple-fringing, though. And I think that the camera performs best when you choose some of the settings yourself, rather than letting the camera choose for you, but I didn't find the learning curve to be at all steep.

If you can get your hands on the F11 (which is not available in North America), I think that you should, since it has aperture and shutter priority modes, a higher resolution LCD, and closer focusing in the macro mode.

The Sony W7 also seems like a very nice camera. I have never owned one but I did get a chance to play with one in a store. For the most part I really like the sample images that I've seen, and it does feature manual control over shutter speed and limited control over aperture. No custom WB setting, though, if that's important to you. And it's ISO 400 images can't compare to the F10's. You might also want to consider the Sony P200, which has very similar specs to the W7.

I have had abolutely no experience with the Nikon Coolpix 7900, but from what I 've read it does have a lot of user-friendly features (such as D-lighting and red-eye removal). Its images seem a little soft right out of the camera, but you can set the sharpening to high in the camera, or use the unsharp mask feature in software like Paint Shop Pro. You mentioned wanting to be able to take good pictures in the dark. If you want to take night pictures with a tripod, keep in mind that the max shutter speed is only 4 seconds, which might not be enough for certain "city at night" pictures.

The Kodak V550 seems like a really easy to use camera. Again, I've never owned one, but I played with one in the store. The interface was very intuitive and I was considering one for my not-so-technically-inclined parents. I find the colours from the images to be a bit too saturated for my taste. For some pictures, I think that can be a good thing; the prints will really "pop". Other pictures might seem a bit unrealistic.

By the way, unless you're planning on printing images larger than, say, 11x13, or you want to crop an image a lot and make a big print out of it, I think a 5-megapixel camera will be fine. I wouldn't be concerned that the V550 has "only" 5 megapixels.