My questionnaire...high megapixels and zoom

[Robynsus]

Hi All,

I posted without the questionnaire by mistake. I did get some helpful answers (thanks!), but thought I might get even more if I did it this way.



[B]Budget[/B

]$500 or less


Size

Not as important as pic quality


Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?
Not sure. I want to be able to crop and blow up pics of my daughter. I am thinking 7. Is 6 enough? I cant find many models that have both high megapixels and high optical zoom.


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

Prefer ultrazoom if possible...basically want to be able to take pics of my daughter's gymnastic class, graduations, etc.


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

Very important...10.


Do you care for manual controls?

No


General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
Taking pics of my daughter.



* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?

Yes, definitely.



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


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


Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?
Like Canon and Sony.


Are there particular models you already have in mind?

Sony H5 (new and not many reviews)

Canon S3? dont know the exact model..high zoom, but only 6 megapixels...will 6 be enough?

Canon A620...I've read you can attach a telephoto lens..has anyone tried this?

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

Maybe Image Stabilization?




Thanks,
Roby

[TenD]

The cameras you mention will provide you with most if not all of what you are looking for. You might want to take a look at the Panasonic FZ7 and FZ20/30(the 30 is slightly over your budget). The one advantage the Panny FZ20/30 provides is a hot shoe for external flash. If you are truly going to be taking a lot of photos indoors/low light, then, to get any kind of decent light, you are going to want an external flash. The H series Sonys have a more powerful on board flash than the Canon or Pannys, it may be adequate for your needs. High ISO performance will be critical for indoor shots without a powerful flash, none of these cameras are exceptional here, most do well up to about ISO 200, but then get quite noisy. There are several programs out there that can do a good job cleaning up that noise though.
I recommend you go to the review sites and look at the images made by these different cameras, read the in depth reviews, and decide which compromises you are willing to make and what you absolutely MUST have. We all have different things we are looking for in a camera and what tends to happen on a site like this is people seem to have a need to justify their purchases and will steer you to what they bought.

[Robynsus]

Thanks!

Robyn

[XaiLo]

OK I bought the Canon S2 and S3 ;) was and am happy with both. I like auto well enough for quik and dirty and it delivers nice pics handily. The S2 and S3 can be equiped with add on lenses (wide - telephoto - closeup) and a slave flash i'm considering the digi - slave 3000. I can not tell you about the sony not into proprietary formats. As with anything I would shoot for something on the little more side than less I find I have less regrets that way. You usually don't know you need something until you don't have it. 6MP I was happy with 5MP are you plannig on printing anything over 8x10?