Aerial Photography/All around goodness

[dbeatle123]

Ok, I am bouncing back and forth here trying to figure out what is the best thing for me. I want to spend something between $300 and $400 on a camera that will give me great photos. I couldn't really care less about the movie modes, the size of the lcd or the size of the camera for that matter. Although I would consider myself an 'educated novice' I am far to poor and too inexperienced to warrant getting a digital SLR, although I have played with a friend's digital rebel and really want quality like that. I know that might not be possible but here is what I have the field somewhat narrowed down to:

Canon A95 - everyone's default favorite?
Canon S1 IS - I dig the zoom... nice for aerial shots? only 3mp? bad low light?
Fuji E550 - seems fast?
Fuji S5100 - sweet looking, performs fast... but crappy pictures?
Nikon Coolpix 5400 - good looking shots... but slow?
Kodak DX7630 - kodak!!???? I live in Rochester... nobody buys Kodak anymore

My requirements are this:

- Good pictures!!!! - clear, bright colors
- An auto mode for quick and dirty shots that are still great
- ability to customize
- FAST, for aerial photos it won't do me a lick of good if the thing i'm shooting is out of frame by the time I take the picture

A huge thanks to anyone who lends a hand. And a big thanks to Jeff for these great reviews. I would know nothing if it wasn't for you.

Dave

[dbeatle123]

Hey, Sorry to reply to my own post but I just wanted to mention a couple other things: I mispoke when I said the Canon S1 IS has bad low light ( I have read so many reviews I must be getting them confused)! Also, here are a couple bad websites I have made with some of the stuff I would like to do with this camera. The pictures on these sites were taken with a variety of cameras, all digital and shoots (Olympus D510 for the bird carvings and a Kodak something for the aerial stuff).

www.hummingbirdstudiousa.com (http://www.hummingbirdstudiousa.com)
http://flying.rh.rit.edu

Thanks again!

Dave

[Rhys]

The S1 IS has problems focussing in low light levels. Aside from that it's a great camera. I suggest that for aerial photos that since no doubt, you'll be set on infinity 99.9% of the time, you leave it on manual focus and leave that set at infinity.

[dbeatle123]

I noticed that the Canon S1 IS has stabilization, would this help for shots from a shakey airplane? Or is this feature really only for suttle movements that could happen at high zoom? Also, if you noticed if you checked out the hummingbird studio website I also do product photography of bird carvings. Do you think the Canon S1 IS lack of Macro would be a hinderance here?

I like the look of the camera, but I am also a little hesitant to spend so much on a 3mp camera! I know its not all about the pixels, and I am not going to be printing out landscape or bird posters, but it seems as though the CCD is a little underpowered when packaged with all the other features.

Any other thoughts? What about the Nikon 5400? I noticed that there is a firmware update for that camera... Would that improve its performance enough to put it above the Canon? One of the posts echoed the dilemma... 'Can't I have it all?'

Any other thoughts?

Thanks

Dave