Need help finding an inexpensive manual

[exodus454]

I've been researching this for quite some time now, but cannot come up with a solid answer. I'm looking for a digi that is capable of 8x10 prints with the least possible distortion and noise. Night shots and open-shudder quality is important to me seeing as I do quite a bit of night shooting. Also, one thing that I would really love to have is a focus ring - after coming from using a 35mm manual, I dont want to be using "focus buttons". One of my main problems is the budget I;m on, looking to have the camera at my front door for less than $350.

Some considerations:
Canon PowerShot S1 IS
Konica Minolta Dimage Z3
Sony DSC-F717 (if I can find it cheap enough)
Various Fuji's

From reading this forum, everyone here seems to praise Panasonic. The image quality from those cameras seems to be decent, but I will never buy another panasonic product again due to the amount of products I have owned from them that have fallen apart.

But please, help me out with this, I've owned a Sony FD Mavica 1.3MP for ~3 years, and it has got to go. :)

[timmciglobal]

One significant problem with all cameras in that price range is gonna be the image noise in night exposure or longer shutter speeds. It gets to be truly horrible and will make it very hard to print > 4X6. Even at 4X6 you'll see noise.

The S1 is a nice camera, though it's auto focus sytem is truly terrible and the manual focus while enlarging center focus point (which is the only and default focus point, though you can "move it" allegidly) though I did love the entire design and layout of it.

The lumix series are ok, though I really don't like the posistion of their optical viewfinders (far left of camera, I don't know why they arn't centered) but they have a focus ring on most, which is good.

Tim