Good Image Quality, Compact Camera with IS

[drew__r]

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible.
less than £175, including at least a 512MB memory card aswell. I already have a 512 MB Memory stick pro duo, so I wouldn't need more memory if I bought a sony.

Size

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

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?
6 - 7 Mp

* What optical zoom will you need? Standard = 3x-4x

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)
8, I really just want a cheap, compact camera that produces good quality pictures in all conditions, indoors, out, and in gigs.

Do you care for manual controls?
Not really

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
Uni pics, at gigs, just an all round camera to get good quality pictures quickly, and has quite a good movie mode that will work in the low lights of gigs, with acceptable sound quality.

* 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 camera for low light levels, or flashing lights at gigs would be good

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?
No sporting, but to be generally good at capturing movement would be cool

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?
Like - Sony, Hate - No

Are there particular models you already have in mind?
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W80, W55

(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features?
My hands shake slightly when held out, and ive noticed this wrecks some pictures on previous digital cameras, Ive read that Image Stabilization can solve this, which the W80 has, but reviews suggest its not very good..?
i also have a Mac, I dont really care if it doesn't have compatible software because Iphoto can sort that out, but some Mac support would be nice, lol.

Thanks for the help, Andy :)

[bascom]

The W80 is small and cheap but got a bad review here.

[w00terz]

As much as I WISH the w80 and w90 are good cameras, after reading many reviews online it seems as if they are quite the contrary. Apparently the last year's model the w-70 is a better camera image quality wise...

The camera I'm looking for is pretty much EXACTLY what you want and I think the camera you're looking for is the Panasonic Lumix FX30. All Lumix cameras have Image Stability (and apparently it's works VERY well), around the same price as the w80...The only things is that it's gotten mixed reviews about indoor picture quality....and I think the w80 looks more sleeker and better.

[kgosden]

Personally I have found the Panasonic's to be consistently good performers. I have used or recommended almost every generation of their superzooms and have yet to have an owner later regret the purchase. I currently own a DMC-FX01 as my briefcase, go everywhere camera. They are fine indoors, but they all suffer from a crappy noise reduction algorithm. They are not very good performers if you need a ISO much over 200. The company generally has very good Leica glass and certainly has the most image stabilization experience in the compact market.