Help!!

[karen151]

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible.

Less than $ 850

Size

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

any
Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?

more than 6 million

* What optical zoom will you need? (None, Standard = 3x-4x, Ultrazoom = 10x-12x, Other - Specify)
Ultrazoom
* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)

10
Do you care for manual controls?

No

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
Everything. outdoor indoor portraits landscapes night shot speed shot close ups

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

yes A4 size

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?
currently own an olympus - very good

Are there particular models you already have in mind?

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

all above if possible!!

Many thanks for your help

[SpecialK]

Hi Karen:

No compact camera or ultrazoom will do all that you ask, particularly low light and sports.

This might be close, though:
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/panasonic/dmc_fz30-review/index.shtml

In fact, though there are some "budget" entry level DLSR's you will still need at least one or two other lenses to do all that you require.

Nikon D40 or D50, or the Pentax K100D are entry-level choices for about $600 or less. You can put them on automatic and basically "point and shoot" as with smaller cameras, but also have manual controls to make adjustments if desired. However extra lenses, depending on brand, can be $200-400 or much more depending on how specialized it is and how particular you are.

Pentax has stabilization built in to the camera. Nikon puts that feature in some of their lenses.

Both have built-in flashes but also have a hotshoe if you want to put a different/better flash on it. Both are 6 MP, which is fine for most cases. With the inexpensive 3X lens that comes with either of them, image quality may be more like "8" or so - whatever that is :-).

[karen151]

thanks for your reply

what about olympus sp500??

[SpecialK]

I don't know anything about it sorry. However, Jeff's review right here on DCRP (you should read them), concluded it was about average.

The biggest negatives that affect your requirements are no stabilization or hotshoe. Also, underwhelming LCD and general performance.

Plusses are it is small and light, and uses readily available AA batteries.