Advice on simple digital for standard candids

[Dreamline]

Hello - I'm looking for some guidance on a basic digital camera to buy to be used primarily for standard friends and family type shots (generally indoors) and sent via email or posted to the web. Nothing too crazy. I presently have a Nikon Coolpix 5900 and am not particularly fond of it. I've found that many of the portraits seem to make the subject look pale and seem to overly emphasize facial imperfections. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Budget

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

$150-$300 area.

Size

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

Reasonably compact. ie - can hopefully fit in pocket and not too bulky.

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?

4-6? No idea.

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

Standard

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

5? Standard.


General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?

Taking pictures of people. ie - photos in the house or at a party. Then posting to web or sending via email.

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

No.

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

A good % will probably be indoors and/or in less than ideal lighting (ie - overhead highhats or track lighting).

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?

No.

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?

See above re: Nikon Coolpix. The pictures of me that I've seen tend to make me look extremely pale and tend to overly emphasize facial things like zits or undereye circles. Other pics from an old Canon Power Shot 5110 (2.1 mp) came out good quality but without the same facial issues.

Are there particular models you already have in mind?

In reading this site the Fuji Finepix seems like a potential choice, but no real preference...

[mattdm]

In reading this site the Fuji Finepix seems like a potential choice, but no real preference...

Yes, definitely. Get the F20 now, or wait for the F40 next month.

[Dreamline]

Yes, definitely. Get the F20 now, or wait for the F40 next month.

Thanks for the suggestion. Is the F20 inferior to the F30 that's recommended in the buyer's guide here? Also, how much better will the F40 be than the F20? I'd prefer to buy something now but don't want to do something stupid. Is this the clear choice for me given my preferences?

Finally, which accessories (if any) should I buy in terms of memory, battery etc?

Thanks for the help!

[mattdm]

I think it's a pretty clear choice given the budget and description of use.

The F20 is missing only a few things from the F30, and honestly, the missing items are mostly check-box features. (The one you'll hear most often is "more manual control", but on a camera like this it's not flexible enough to be very useful.) And beyond that, the F20 is limited to ISO 2000 in its Natural Light mode, which is actually a good thing as the F30's 3200 is way too noisy. There's some older messages here which go into more detail if you like.

The main thing the F40 adds is SD card support instead of xD. It's also got an 8 megapixel sensor instead of 6, but it remains to be seen if the increased number of pixels is matched by an increase in quality.

The F40 also has face detection like the F31fd (a nifty gimmick), and unlike the F20, has a dial to set the scene mode which makes for less fiddling in the menu.

On the other hand, it's likely to come in at $300 to start, and the F20 is $160 or less now. (Add $20 for the xD card, though -- see below. For the F40, a 1gb SD card is $10 and faster. So consider $180 vs $310.)

All of these come with a proprietary lithium battery which lasts for 500 shots or so on a charge -- you very likely don't need a second.

You will need an xD card, though. (Or, SD for the F40.) If you get the F20 and are stuck with xD, I recommend getting the 512MB "Type H" card. It's only a few dollars more expensive than Type M and is faster. And you don't really want more than that on a card without copying to a computer for backup anyway.

[Dreamline]

Thanks for all the help & for making it easy (esp. with the xd card) - I really appreciate it.