A quick question

[DirkDrainHead]

Hello I am new here and I was wondering if someone could tell me about a good digital camera for amateur photography.
I really like black & white pictures and would like a digital camera with that kind of feature. I was looking at the Canon PowerShot S21S / PowerShot G6 / PowerShot A610 / or the PowerShot A620.
I only have $200 or $300 dollers or so and would appreciate any input. If anybody can tell of a better camera i would also appreciate that information as well. Thank You.

 

[Rob]

The Canon compacts are pretty good. Generally with digital you are better off shooting in colour and using photoshop or similar to convert to B&W. This gives you the effective ability to add filters to enhance the image as you can selectively boost the individual colour channels to suit the situation. Cameras with a B&W function generally just even out the RGB and desaturate the image, which gives a fairly flat dull image, you'll be able to achieve better yourself with post-shot manipulation.

Look at dpreview, go into a store and hold a few. Ignore megapixels and meaningless sales gumpf and see what you think.

Rob