Vacation low light compact camera

[Steve T]

Thanks in advance for your help....

Budget
* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible. $300 and under

Size
* What size camera are you looking for? Or does size not matter at all to you? compact. Needs to fit in a pocket while in it's small/thin case

Features
How many megapixels will suffice for you? N/A as long as it's good image quality

* 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) 8-9

Do you care for manual controls? not really, give me the auto controls so I don't screw up the picture.

General Usage
* What will you generally use the camera for? Vacations. We travel fairly regularly and will use the camera for these needs. We will be taking lots of pictures of scenery in varying light and weather conditions. Our biggest complaint with the current camera is that the pictures come out blurry sometimes but crystal clear others, and it performs poorly in low light (dawn/dusk).

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not? We'd like to have some of our prints blown up

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos? yes, more outdoor low light photos than indoors

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos? not really

Miscellaneous
Are there particular brands you like or hate? not happy with Sony right now. We had a Canon before the Sony and really liked it.

Are there particular models you already have in mind? No

Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD)
Since we regularly get blurry photos we are wondering if Image Stabilization would be preferred. While I mentioned varying weather conditions above, I don't think Weatherproofing is a must.

[bascom]

I'm thinking Fuji F40 or F50. What camera do you use now?

[jekostas]

Right now, the Fuji 200EXR is the best low-light compact camera by a country mile. You are going to have a problem finding it for under $300, though, as it is both fairly new and in quite high demand (MSRP is $399).

Beyond that, well, there really isn't anything. Compact cameras on a whole are not good low-light cameras. Just the limits of technology.

If you're willing to look at a used camera, older models in the Fuji line like the F40fd, F30, F31fd, F50fd and F100fd might fit the bill as well.

[Steve T]

I have no particular camera in mind. My current camera is a Sony Cybershot DSC-W70.

Thanks again for the help above. And please share any other recommendations you may have.

[tim11]

Low light and compacts doesn't go well together. However, if you only print standard small size then many cameras now have the ability to shoot in low light. For scenery I recommend you find a light portable tripod so that will solve lots of problem and for a compact camera you can get an inexpensive one. Fuji cams are steps ahead others in low light photography, especially the F series.