Fast point n' shoot digicam

tsmyer

I am finally getting around to doing a bit of Christmas shopping and I am looking for a fast digicam for $200 or less. I'm buying this as a gift and need something that doesn't take a forever to reset for the next shot.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Awais Yaqub

i use sony w1 it is fast in everything flash recharge shot to shot and focus .
But dont know if sony's new range have same speed must be better or same after 2 years. try them new w series is really slim.
200$ i think w50 is littel more than that

But let wait for canon etc users for input.

jimf

tsmyer wrote:

I am finally getting around to doing a bit of Christmas shopping and I am looking for a fast digicam for $200 or less.

Fast and cheap P&S? I think you're going to be out of luck, but it depends on what you mean by "fast." You might cruise the older models to try to get a higher-end one cheap; there are some good deals on 3mpel cameras, and that's about as good as the lenses on those things can resolve anyway.

I haven't used a lot of P&S models, but if recycle time is your goal go check out http://www.dpreview.com since they list that on their reviews. At the very least you can see what brands tend to recycle quickly.

My preference for P&Ss has been the Canon Digital Elphs; they have tended to be relatively quick because Canon has specialized image processor chips, but more importantly to me they make nice, clean images. I have an Olympus 720SW that I bought for mountain biking (it's nearly indestructible) but it is slow slow slow and takes terrible pictures.

tsmyer

Thanks for the suggestions.

Awais
Thanks for the tip on the Sony models. I haven't checked into them lately. Now to go a see how they feel in my hand.

jimf
I didn't realize that dpreview show the recycle time in there reviews. Kinda funny because I tend to read the site forums quite often.
As far as what I mean when I say "fast". This camera is for my sister and she was complaining how slow her old Nikon 2200 was. I figured there has to be a camera that can recover faster that the 10 sec or so that the coolpix takes.

I'v just taken a look a the Canon A530 and it recycled in about 5 seconds. Any opinions on this model?

Thanks

jimf

tsmyer wrote:

I didn't realize that dpreview show the recycle time in there reviews. Kinda funny because I tend to read the site forums quite often.

Well, it's buried in that huge table that you probably skim over like everyone else :-).

As far as what I mean when I say "fast". This camera is for my sister and she was complaining how slow her old Nikon 2200 was. I figured there has to be a camera that can recover faster that the 10 sec or so that the coolpix takes.

Oh, well you shouldn't have any trouble beating that easily. To me, "fast" means "will shoot immediately" and only DSLRs do that. You won't have much trouble finding P&Ss that recycle in 3-5sec these days, maybe longer if you're using a flash.

I'v just taken a look a the Canon A530 and it recycled in about 5 seconds. Any opinions on this model?

I don't recall if I've used that model in particular but I have used at last a couple different versions of A series cameras to good effect. For that matter I don't recall any Canon models I didn't mostly like, perhaps with the occasional caveats (like the old PowerShots that had poor battery life but were otherwise terrific). Canon manages good picture quality even on their tiny models.

I don't usually recommend the A series because if you want P&S then the tiny Elphs (SDxxx line) are usually a good buy, and if you want more performance in a compact model the G series are the choice, but the A series does cut the difference pretty well.

In any case it's going to be a heck of a lot faster than what you are replacing :-).