best and cheapest meeting these requirements...

[3darth]

My mom is looking for a camera that she can focus, adjust iris and set white balance. Doesn't need to be super high megapixels- she's using it for ebay type of website, but needs the colors to be accurate as possible. What's the cheapest and easiest to use out there- needs to be a digital camera.
Thanks,

[bascom]

Canon A540 is only $200 and has full manual controls. Isn't Iris in the eye?

[Militaris]

Also have a look at the Canon PowerShot A530, It should be slightly cheaper then the A540. Image quality wise both cameras should be simalar and it still offers comprehensive manual controls, the main that I can see is that the 530 has a smaller screen.

[John_Reed]

Canon A540 is only $200 and has full manual controls. Isn't Iris in the eye?Some of us geriatric types remember when people referred to the lens diaphragm as the "iris." After all, the eye's iris performs the similar task of "stopping down" the light entering your eyeball when it gets too bright?

[JPW2020]

Some of us geriatric types remember when people referred to the lens diaphragm as the "iris." After all, the eye's iris performs the similar task of "stopping down" the light entering your eyeball when it gets too bright?

Speaking as a fellow geriatric(but in my prime) I would also suggest that the A540 might be the slightly better option,the 2.5" LCD is rather easier to see without glasses and the price differential here in the U.K. is only about £20, if you look around.It also has a far superior movie mode.I think the little extra is worth paying.

[3darth]

thanks for the help- sorry for the word "iris"- I come from the video field. I was realy hoping for a camera that would be able to be focused on the front instead of through a menu, and also a way that the white balance could be set by pointing at something white and telling the camera- this is white. Does any such thing exist?

[John_Reed]

thanks for the help- sorry for the word "iris"- I come from the video field. I was realy hoping for a camera that would be able to be focused on the front instead of through a menu, and also a way that the white balance could be set by pointing at something white and telling the camera- this is white. Does any such thing exist?"Focused on the front" is a property of larger cameras with focusing rings, like the Panasonic FZ50, or the Fuji 9000 (and other Fuji models). And as for setting the White Balance, it's set on my FZ30 (like the FZ50) by using the menu in conjunction with pointing at something white, as you said. Not to mention its Auto White Balance and other preset WB settings; I use only the Auto and Manual set WBs myself.

But these cameras (i.e., with focusing and zoom rings) tend to be on the larger side of the "fixed-lens" camera spectrum, just to be clear.