Replacing an Olympus C4040

[audiobuff2]

Hello,
my faithful C4040 has decided to not allow the lens to extend, and it just keeps shutting off. So, I'm in the market for a new camera. One of the features of the C4040 was the f 1.8 aperture. It allowed me to take great pictures in minimal light, and I didn't have to use the flash all that often.

I'd like to find a camera with a similar f stop, but they all seem to start at f2.8. Is this a big deal?

My daughter is in gymnastics and no flash is allowed during competitions. Lighting can vary from fluorescent to large warehouse can lights.

Here's the questionnaire for details:
Budget
I'd like to keep it under $400

Size
No big deal. I don't want to require a backpack to carry it, but occasionally the wife will want to put it in her purse.

Features
How many megapixels will suffice for you?
Anything, most of my shots were in the 2MP range, email and web and the odd 4x6 print
* What optical zoom will you need? Standard is fine. Don't think I'll need more than 10x

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)
8 - Should be able to handle varying lighting and be able to stop action scenes.

Do you care for manual controls?
They'd be nice to have, but I found I rarely used them with the old camera.

General Usage
* What will you generally use the camera for?
Family outings, parties and gymnastics as well as soccer sports photos.

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

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos?
Yes, birthday parties, Christmas gift opening. etc.

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?
Yes, gymnastics, soccer and whatever when kids get older

Miscellaneous
Are there particular brands you like or hate?
Nope
Are there particular models you already have in mind?
Nope
(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD)
Image stabilization would be nice, but I've never had it, so I don't know what I'm missing. I've been pretty good at self-stabilizing.

Thanks very much for any forthcoming help. I really appreciate it.

Dave

[KCook]

Ok, sorry for the deafening silence on this thread! But generally anybody who really needs a f 1.8 aperture also really needs a DSLR. Most P&S jobs are f/2.8 because they are all zooms. For low light performance the usual recommendation is a Fuji, as in F30 (hard to find now), F40fd, F45fd (sold only by Ritz), F50fd, and F100fd (newest and greatest). I happen to have the F45fd, but I'm not convinced that Fuji really has such a lock on low light performance. There are also a few models by Kodak and Nikon that I wouldn't mind giving a low light test drive.

no help Kelly

[audiobuff2]

Thanks for the bit of advice. I'll start browsing the Nikon and Fuji brands for starters. They only have a couple of models to choose from, eh :)
Regarding the aperture, my gut tells me this is why I can get a much better picture then the other parents with a P&S camera, in the same light conditions. Is the f1.8 the reason I didn't get such dark pictures? The camera was usually set on Auto, so it didn't confuse my wife.

On another thought, does the camera's ISO rating really have much to do with picture quality? It's prominently displayed in the spec pages. However, in looking at some of the reviews, it seems the image quality deteriorates rapidly as you increase the ISO. My memory from film says higher ISO= more sensitive to light, but in the digital world, do the cameras just crank up the gain and sacrifice the image?

[David Metsky]

On another thought, does the camera's ISO rating really have much to do with picture quality? It's prominently displayed in the spec pages. However, in looking at some of the reviews, it seems the image quality deteriorates rapidly as you increase the ISO. My memory from film says higher ISO= more sensitive to light, but in the digital world, do the cameras just crank up the gain and sacrifice the image?
In general the higher the ISO the noisier the image. SLRs have much larger sensors then P&S cameras, so they don't show much noise until way up in the high ISO numbers, but P&S cameras for the most part are crap once you get over ISO 400. The cameras may have a setting for ISO 3200 but it's just marketing.

Some cameras however are better at ISO 400 (and even 800) then others. The Fujis with the SuperCCD are known for the best high ISO performance in P&S cameras.