Camera shopping

[plonq]

Something that atara and I have been discussing for some time is the idea of buying a pocket camera. We love our current cameras, but they are just too bulky to be practical at times, and we want something that one or t'other of us can just slip into a pocket on our way out door.

We shelved the discussion for a couple of years while atara was in school, but now that we are starting to claw our way back into the black, we've renewed the discussion, and it sounds like we might actually buy one in the next couple of weeks.

I started doing some on-line shopping, and even though we're not looking for something to replace the big ones, I was immediately drawn to models like the ZS7, HX5V, TX7, SX210... I haven't done any serious shopping since I bought the Nikon almost four years ago, so I'm a bit out of the loop, and I have never shopped for a subcompact. What kind of things should I be shopping for?

Do any of you out there have some wisdom or experience that you can share with me? I'd be happy to hear any anecdotal evidence. Have you had good or bad experiences with a particular make or model? Are there any cameras that you've heard especially good things about? Are there any that I should be actively avoiding? Is the Leica M8 really worth $8,999.99?

Anyway, I welcome any suggestions you might have.

Comments

[pierrekrahn.livejournal.com]

$8,999.99 is totally reasonable for that camera. It is NEW after all!

[kfops.livejournal.com]

All the Leica users that paid $8999.99 said that it was totally worth it.

But why buy a real Leica when you can get a cheap Russian "Leica" complete with a German war eagle?!

[kfops.livejournal.com]

We picked up a pretty decent (price and feature-wise) camera for Amanda a year or two ago. I believe it is a Pentax Optio Z10, which has a 7x optical zoom and a specific type of lens that never actually extrudes from the body when you're using it, and according to Wikipedia has the same shake-reduction used in the Pentax DSLR cameras.

We picked up another compact camera for me just to tote around all the time, but it only has 4x zoom... which unfortunately I do find a bit limiting with photos I want to take.

Of course, this camera is also a couple years old now... so I'm probably more than just a bit out of date.

[aurifer.livejournal.com]

You could get an actual DSLR in that size, if you get one of the mirrorless models.

There was a fantastic review somewhere, where some guy took it with him on a trip to some sort of mountain, and the pictures were beautiful.
But I can't find the link.