Point and Shoot (small) cameras?

[stayawake]

Okay, so I have a beautiful lumix DMC FZ50 with a great light card (takes gorgeous photos inside!) and some awesome lenses for it but my problem is it is so BIG that I never really bother to take photos anymore. I mean, I would never want to take that on a field trip or to the beach or something because it's bulky, has a giant bag, and is really conspicuous, you know?
So. I'm thinking with money I usually get for Christmas, I might shop for a small lightweight pocket point and shoot camera. Something I can capture all the everyday little moments with.

Any suggestions??

I'd want
1.a minimum 5x optical zoom
2. a pretty fast shutter turnaround ( I don't want to have to wait a minute between pressing the button and the photo, and then have to wait again before I can take another photo! )
3. decent quality images (I know it's not going to take as great a photo as my big one, or a DSLR or anything, but I want usable photos)

Oh, and secondarily I want something that comes in pretty colours. But that's not nearly as important as taking pretty good photos.

[msbrad]

Here is the little one I have.
http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Ca...S_Ixus_870_IS/
It does a nice job. I've was really impressed with the 'fireworks', 'sunset' and a couple other settings.
Only drawbacks to it: no eyeball view finder. And...only auto, and program mode.
Cannot set for av, sh, or in raw.
m

[Andrea Gourley]

This is what I have, a Canon Ixus 85IS I've had it for a year so I think they might have brought out a newer model now but it takes excellent pictures, the colours are always spot on and it actually takes better photographs than my large DSLR Canon. It is tiny so fits into my jeans pockets so in theory I should always have it with me. The only thing it's not so good at is taking photographs of my always on the move mad puppy but it takes kids okay.

I think Canon America might have different names than Canon Europe

[stayawake]

Thanks! I'll have to check those out. Canon makes a super cool waterproof point and shoot, and there are many 'indestructable' models out there. I'm thinking that's what I need. *LOL*
Now if any of them were rechargeable that would be awesome...

[4noisyboys]

I have a Canon point and shoot...mine is the SD790 IS. I really like mine a lot. I mostly keep it on manual and I hardly ever use the flash. It really takes nice pics. It's not going to be like your DSLR, but I love the fact that it's compact and I can always have it in my handbag ready to shoot at any time, and I love that it can capture video,