Canon-sd300, A95,s60,s600

[TripleFFF]

Bought a Sony T1 it's garbage, goona refund it for a canon camera

This is what i'm looking for

1) I want a high quality digital camera with good indoor pictures in low light conditions, outdoor is equally important.

2) Good sharpness, tons of features, easy to use, nothing to heavy

3) Big screen ( prefer 1.8 inches or above )

4) Good Zoom and strong flash

I love compact cameras but if they can't produce quality pictures or don't have a strong flash than i can go bigger, ot a problem.

I got 4 choices-----Sd300,A95,S60,S600

You guys are pretty educated in this field, please help me out
Your feedback is highly appreciated

[TenD]

I have not been impressed with Sony though. My friend has a DSC-V1 and after some time his wife refused to use it, and he learned a lot about photography because he could never trust the auto modes. The build was a little "plasticy", but the lens and image quality were excellent. His wife wanted a digital camera, but wanted simple. She ended up with an S400 and he ended up with a 300D. They are both really happy now.

• SD300, really small, really really small. You will have some compromises with a camera this small, but it is very capable of taking fine images. Uses an SD card for image capture rather than the usual CF card used in Canon Cameras. High quality body that is fairly heavy but feels good in your hands. Good camera if you are looking for a point and shoot without manual modes that is very compact.
  
  S600 , did you mean S500? The S500 is small, not as small as the SD300 but still very small. Another camera with no real manual modes, the manual mode is just basically a P mode on more advanced cameras. Bigger than the SD300 and still uses CF cards for image capture, it has the same type of body as the SD300, heavy but feels good. Another good very compact point and shoot camera with very good image quality.
  
  A95 semi compact, maybe not quite pocket sized, but still very small. I like the tilt swivel screen, it is very usefull for: odd angle shots, protecting the screen, saving batteries by not always using it. I rarely have my G2's screen out, I just open it like a book now and again to review a histogram or review a shot. A little more plastic construction than the other cameras in your list, but still feels quality. Takes AA batteries, good because you can get batteries just about anywhere, bad because if you want rechargables you have to buy them on top of buying the camera. The A95 has full manual modes as well as auto modes.
  
  S60 this is one of my favorites. It is in the shape of a little brick and kind of heavy like a brick, but also feels very quality. I used to own an S30, I gave it to my parents, and I still love the image quality of the shots they send me from it. The two knocks I had on the S30 was the silly 5 way switch(fixed on the S60) and the battery life(I think the S30 had some issues there.)The S60 is basically a mini G series camera. It has many auto modes along with the usual manual modes. It is one of the few compacts that has an actual wide angle lens.

Buy one, you'll like it.

[TripleFFF]

Thanx a lot TenD for the detailed information for each camera, it was very useful to me, i cut it down to the sd300 and s500 although the s60 is very nice i want something small, i'm leaning towards the sd300 because it's small and has a large screen unlike the S500 but it's 4 mp and the s500 is 5 mp.

TenD does 1Mp really make a difference? I won't be editing or printing alot of the pictures......thanx once again for your info.....

[TenD]

The SD300 looks like a really nice camera, I like the big LCD too. It won't however give you any manual modes. The manual mode simply unlocks shutter speed and white balance. The S500 has basically the same control. Personally I couldn't live without the ability to change parameters, but there is something to be said for a good point and shoot camera.

[Matt5L]

I did research quite a bit. I was going to buy either the SD300 or S500 or S410. I decided on the SD300. The SD300 is a awesome camera. BUT when I went in to buy it I noticed the SD200 is $100 less, im not going to make any masssive prints (larger then standard sheet of paper even then doubt ill make many in my cams lifetime at that size) so I decided to save $100 and get the SD200. Takes great pics, im pretty happy so far.

[Newbie]

You asked whether 1mp would make a difference between 4 and 5... according to what you have said its a definitive no. Actually, since you seem to prefer the SD300... if I were you I'd go for the SD200 instead... The reason is simple, with both cameras you can print photo quality pictures of 4x6 and 5x7. With both camera you will get excellent(not photo quality, but VERY close) 8x10 pictures, the SD300 being a bit closer to photo quality than the SD200. Also, going with the SD200 will enable you to store more pics on the same SD card.

Since you won't be editing, I presume you won't crop either which is 1 reason why MAYBE 1mp could have been useful(tho not much). And since you won't print much, why not save 100$ and go for the SD200.

With that being said, what you are looking for is good sharpness, tons of features, easy to use, nothing to heavy. Well, the SD200-300 is not heavy at all, its easy to use. It doesn't have many features, but it does have manual white balance and u can take long exposures. Also, it has some softness around edges and corners of photos and above average purple fringing according to DCRP review. If when looking at some samples pictures you are not bothered, then go for it.

I suggest you take a look at pictures taken with the camera u plan to buy on http://www.pbase.com/cameras