Suggestions for a P&S?

[prodigy2k7]

I have the Canon Rebel XTi, I am on eventually getting a small P&S I can carry in my pocket everywhere, so I dont have to lug my camera to places. Sometimes I dont want to bring my camera into a restaurant for instance... Id like to get a small P&S just for when I dont have my camera.

Pretend I dont have a budget, probably $500 max...if need be $750 MAX MAX MAX...

But I dont care about excellent ISO performance, I dont need priority modes of sports modes or any of that. I really just want a POINT AND SHOOT, no settings to adjust,...

Im looking for a good crisp and clear pictures in good daylight. Make sense?
Must have IS, a decent zoom no more than 100mm and no less than 20mm lets say... SO somewhere inbetween, with a decent range....

Obviously needs a flash....

I dont care about optical viewfinder...Or the size of the LCD, my biggest concern is picture quality... I dont care about anything else. Something to ahve fun with

Also, SUPER COMPACT! Not the medium size like advanced P&S's are...
Oh and stick to good companies plz, Canon, Nikon, Sony etc...

Id prefer Canon but id take anything thats good

 

[.Cipher]

I have a Panasonic DMC-LZ8, and am rather happy with it. With that kind of budget though, you could easily step up to the LZ10 or some of the other high end ones they have.

 

[JIP]

I think the G9 is pretty much it when it comes to compact P+S cameras right?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/518209-REG/Canon_2082B001_PowerShot_G9_Digital_Camera.html

You may not get the zoom you want but it is pretty much top of the line with everything else. If you want more zoom I think you need to get into the larger bodies.

 

[YoungPic]

I would go with the canon sd1100 IS, good solid line of cameras, few little toys in there to play with, fairly sharp image from my experiences and it has the bonus of IS. The only down side I see is that it only has 3X optical zoom, but otherwise i would look any further, and you probably find it for $250 with memory (plus taxes)

 

[AussieDee]

While everyone's at making suggestions, how do you feel about lag? Mine lags by focusing in on the subject whether I"m in manual or automatic and it royally s u c k s ! Try to take a picture of a bird and it flies off just before the click. I have tons of photos of branches. LOL!

I have a really cheap p&s tho. But as for higher end P&S's how are they with lag?

 

[ksmattfish]

With a few exceptions they all seem remarkably similar to me. My wife's Canon Powershot (I don't know which model, it was about $160 last year) doesn't have the lag of point-n-shoots a few years older. As far as image quality goes they all do pretty good at their native ISO, and quickly go downhill as the ISO goes up. I just got a fancy G7. I love the operation, but image quality isn't much different from my wife's Powershot. If you are used to ISO 400 from a DSLR ISO 400 from a compact is shockingly poor.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

I've got a Panasonix FX-33 which I really like. Got lots of good write ups when I was looking. I think that model is now harder to find as a newer version is on the market, but it should do pretty much all you asked for at a very reasonable price.