HELP! Lost in Digital Camera World

[allydown]

Hello,

I would like to thank you very much for your help ahead of time. It is greatly appreciated. I am a novice photographer and what I really want is a digital camera that takes really good pictures of my kids - LOL! that's pretty much it. Red Eye is a huge problem becuase they are blue eyed, big pupiled children. Also, zoom is important becuase often I have to be far away while taking a shot (soccer games, school plays, etc.) I have numerous cameras over the years and by far my most favorite for my photo quality has been my 25 year old minolta maxxum 7000. (very big and bulky I might add).

So I am looking for a camera with great photo's, good red eye reduction, a large zoom so I can get close from far away and one not too bulky. Price would be nice under $750.00.

Any ideas??

allyson

[George Riehm]

Well, except for the "bulky" part, the Panasonic FZ-10, with very fast 12x optical zoom lens, would be ideal. Barring that, the next choice would be the Canon S1-IS, smaller but with 10x optical zoom. Both of these cameras have long zooms and image stabilization so that you can pull off those long action shots, even on cloudy days. The S1 IS offers a pretty good movie mode for those soccer victory films. The downside is it takes a lot of memory so you will have to spring for a fast, large, memory card.

Both are priced under $500, and will yield good prints up to 8 x 10. Give em' a try. After that there are a ton of ultra zooms from Kodak, Fuji, Olympus, etc., without image stabilization, in your price range.

[levine2002]

I am almost, but not quite a novice. I have an old Leica Digilux 4.3 which I have been using. I need to photograph silver flatware, as well as porcelain and crystal for product photos. Additionally, I need to get really good resolution as I use these images in ads. What I really need to end up with is an 8x12 image with great detail. I am at a loss as to what to purchase. I tried my daughter's Nikon Coolpix 4500 and it was: A) too difficult to use; B) did not give me anything better (surprisingly) than what I am already using. Is there such a thing as a point and shoot which is easy to use (in auto or manual mode) and which will give me great resolution with little noise.
What should I buy?
HELP!

I just realized that I'm replying rather than posting. How do I post this question?

[JDR7171988]

Levine, the perfect camera for you would be either the Sony T1 or the Canon S500. Both very easy to use. Read some reviews, and try them out at a store to see if you agree.