Compact P&S?

[Wilbur]

I'm looking for a fairly basic model that will take decent pictures. My budget is $100 or less (I have a pretty old sony cypershot that isnt all that good because of lack of zoom). I don't know enough about photography to understand, so this is kind of my base to start on to get a feel what I want more. I wanted a S90 but its way over my head right now. I'm planning to get a much better one later anyways.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Olympus...mera/1485197.p?id=1218262483768&skuId=1485197

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Olympus...Gray/9765198.p?id=1218169693139&skuId=9765198

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/FUJIFIL...lack/9766737.p?id=1218170031871&skuId=9766737

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Nikon+-...lack/9765125.p?id=1218169695235&skuId=9765125

Any other cameras to look at would be great too.

 

[Herbie]

If it were me, in that price range, I would look into finding the newest used-Canon SDxxx I could get my hands on. I love that line for the super-pocket-able size and ruggedness and battery thriftyness (shot ~4000 images over 16 days vacationing in Europe on like 2-3 batteries)

More than all of that, though:
I'm a HUUUGE fan of the Canons because of the Canon Hack Developer's Kit (CHDK) that basically allows you take over the camera's OS and do all kinds of awesome stuff that the software on the P&S cameras don't normally let you do. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

Want to run some REALLY long exposure night shots? Want full manual control over aperture and shutter speeds? Want a full soft-intervalometer?

The last one is the thing I use all the time - I use one of the excellent Intevalometer scripts to shoot time-lapse stuff. It can do motion-sensing time lapse, or just shoot on a fixed interval, either with fixed aperture/speed settings or letting the auto software do it's thing every time. I've made some cool trip "videos" shooting timelapse from the dashboard, and it works fantastically well to just shoot "continuously" every 15s or so when I hang the camera from my kite rig.

The best part? Easy to install and turn on/off. Put it on a SD card and either turn it on manually if you'll only use it a little, or flip the "lock" switch on the card to have it enabled all the time.

I don't have any trip videos handy, but here's a quicky timelapse I shot out my office window with CHDK and an older Canon I got for $40 off craigslist: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq_mUQpZelA"]Timelapse[/ame]The youtube version is so-so, but if it wasn't for the boring subject matter (it's the loading dock at the back of the building with clouds in the sky), the original uncompressed video made from several hundred five megapixel images would be a candidate for one of those "show off your HDTV" video discs,

 

[Wilbur]

Well I will take a look at them for sure. The one currently in my budget is the SD1300, but reviews seem good!

 

[Wilbur]

Can someone explain what's really the difference between canon SD1300 vs SD1400? Specs look similar and ones tad bigger. I believe that's what I'm going with but best buy has good sale on both right now. 1300 is $107 and 1400 is $150.

 

[Warn Industries]

Another vote for Canon here. I bought a SD1400 IS for work, and it's been a fantastic little camera. Only a 4x zoom, but I've had great luck with it. It has a fairly wide angle lens, too, which is great for me, since I take a decent amount of photos at shows, and don't have a lot of room to back up to get everything in the photo. Amazon has the 1400 for $148.99.

Also, for the differences between the two, I found this link helpful.

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Canon_PowerShot_SD1300_IS_vs_Canon_PowerShot_SD1400_IS

- Andy