help with best suited digi for me?

[rza]

Wife needs a new camera and im looking for something but not liking what ive been seeing looking around other places. any informed recommendations to help me make my decision would be greatly appreciated

Budget

I would say no more than $250 USD from a place that i would get the full manufacturer warranty honored. (i.e. no ebay)

Size

no bigger than a standard compact size

Features
her greatest concerns are

a nice picture (1-10 scale maybe 8 and up) , for standard take to walgreens and print out, or post on her facebook.

good night pictures (we go to disney at night alot as well as day)

no blur on zoomed pics (for girlscout pictures or school events for the kids, when zooming in and out to get everyone in the pictures clearly or zooming in to get a person up on stage.)

Megapixels arent important as im seeing it seems higher pixels kinda been looking crappy to me on sample pictures compared to something smaller when it comes to night time pics. so as long as it looks good on 4x6 or online (say 800 x 600) its good for me.

Standard = 3x-4x, will be good for me im thinking cant expect much for a smaller camera

Do you care for manual controls?
not really she doesnt know much about manual controls so as long as it take pics of what she wants she is good to go.

General Usage
vacation pics
girlscout and school event pics
family gathering pics


* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?
pretty much standard walgreen printouts and facebook uploads

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

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


Are there particular brands you like or hate?
not really previous cam was a finepix f440 (pictures were great for about 10 months then it really started to deteriorate and had to send it in for a replacement and the replacement went to crap a year later)

Are there particular models you already have in mind?
was looking at the fujifilm Z33 WP and the Panasonic Lumix-DMC-FS7 online and was liking some of the sample photos ive seen on some sites but am not mindset on these, they just seemed to have better night pics than some of the "better" cams like the F100fd

[rza]

i was also looking at the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 now. seems to be a nice looking camera but cant find any info on night time photos about it.

[r3g]

When you say "no blur on zoomed pics" I assume your talking about the more you zoom the more sensative the camera shake is to shake. You'll want a camera with some sort of image stabilization to help counter that but it wont work miracles especially in low light.

The TZ5 has image stabilization and is an extremely nice camera but it lacks manual controls so it wont be very good in low light situations. Night time photography isnt a strong point for P&S cameras. With a budget of $250 I'm not sure youll find a camera that will fit all your needs.

[rza]

this f440 as of late seems to have a problem that when i zoom in on an object it wont get focus. I guess it might be a camera problem, but it pisses my wife off to the point that it became a big thing on purchasing a new camera. The night pics i thin k its just more of I dont know if you know disney world but they light up cinderellas castle at night and she wants a cam that will take clear pics of the castle not a big light blur in the dark. She also wants to take a pic of my daughter in front of the castle. Im really thinking im leaning towards the TZ5 the more im reading on it. Does anyone see any downsides with this camera? Wife is not really big on manual features either so I guess she really needs a p&s with good auto features. Im still trying to talk her into letting me get my DSLR but thats another time, I need this one before next thursday for a trip she is taking with my daughters school to island of adventure friday morning, and locally is being a pita to find the tz5 being sold for under $300. abes of maine is selling it online for $221 and i can overnight it for $18 but i dont know their turnaround time on processing orders which worries me :/ sorry for the rant on, alot of stuff running through my head on this camera right now.

[r3g]

The TZ5 has a night shot mode so it would most likely get the job done but your going to be blurry photos either way unless you use a tripod when you take the shot. That goes for pretty much any camera you use. Its a great camera though.. I dont think youd regreat buying it.