Need a camera for low budget newspapers

[Pixel]

Hello Everyone,

I would like to thank you right away for looking at this post with hopes that you can help me find the camera that would fit my needs the best.

I own low budget newspapers and I need nice camera that would help me do my job.

I'm looking into something that is up to $400, with nice specs. Since I don't know much about cameras I'll try to describe what I usually do and if you don't mind sugesting something that you guys think would fit my needs I would definately appreciate it.

I attend lots of business meetings, theater plays, sport events as well as dinner events (bad lighting). They are almost equally inside and outside as well as in the good and not so good lit spaces.

Trough reading this forum I concluded (like I know something) that Fuji F50 is kind of nice. However I would probably prefer something like Fuji S700 or Canon S5 because they look bit more pro. This is not set in stone because I would go with whatever majority thinks is best choice.

I hope this helps at least a bit.For more information I included questionary below.

Thank you,


Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible.
Up to $400

Size

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

Don't Care About Size (Size don't matter:))

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?

7+

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

Not sure about this one maybe my intro could define this better?!

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

9-10 - Pictures will be used for print as well as web.

Do you care for manual controls?

Doesn't matter

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?

Camera will be used for taking pictures on different events that could be ranged between, cultural, political, sport and many more manifestation.

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

Very likely. YES!

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

Probably about 45% of photos will be indoor with good chunk of them being low light photos.

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?

Yes

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?

There are no real preferences but I heard couple good things about Fuji F50 but I would prefer maybe something like Fuji S700 and Canon S5 (this is not set in stone).

Are there particular models you already have in mind?

I guess I answered that in previous question:)

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

Image Stabalization would be nice but not a must...

[KCook]

business meetings, theater plays, sport events as well as dinner events (bad lighting). They are almost equally inside and outside as well as in the good and not so good lit spaces.
Since this is a business tool, my approach would be to cover all this with 2 or 3 different cameras. Not try to do it all with a single SLR-like point-and-shoot.

wude Kelly

[Pixel]

I would LOVE to do so but at this time I can not afford something like that. Thats why I need one camera until I get to the point to buy couple of cameras for different happenings.

Thank you for your reply.

[tim11]

This is difficult since there is really no PnS camera that will perform to your description (ie. Sports, lowlight (45%), wide and zoom) and still falls under $400; and business quality at that. S5 is great for good light but indoors or at lower light it will be left begging. Fuji F50 is better in lowlight but will it have the zoom range for sports?
However, you are the one deciding on the quality and if you think F50fd is good enough then maybe a used S6000fd is more useful to you. It's recently been discontinued but there may be some shops that still have some left. It's a long zoom, low light performer and it has the size and look of DSLR. Good luck for the search.

[SpecialK]

The Canon S5IS is not good at high ISO/low light. The older S3IS has a little better IQ due to fewer megapixels, though. A table top tripod may help (you can brace it against walls and doorways, too) by allowing longer shutter speeds (at a lower and smoother ISO) but then you would not be using IS on a tripod, and you loose some spontaneity.

There is no perfect camera.

[raven15]

I second the Fuji S6000. Get a tripod to go with it.

[seo]

Or possibly a fuji S9100 and an external flash.

[Pixel]

Thank you so much for your replys. I'll look into Fuji S6000 as well as in Fuji S9100 and let you know which one I'll go for and hows performance...