My kids want to buy me something nice for christmas, I suggested a camera. So I'm thinking a point and shoot style camera, one with some control by the me, like aperture, f stops, and time, nothing too flash but something that I can use and have full control when I spoil the shot.

And can you tell the difference between 5, 8, and 10 megapixels ?
Oh! and something with more than 3x zoom.





                             Mmick (awaiting the masters reply)

go for the cannon g 10 mick great camera and will grow with you and yes there is a big different s when it comes too mega pixels more the better if you want too do some enlargements matty will chime in soon and give you the real low down cheers bazz hope your not too sore   

Canon G10 or G11. G11 has just replaced G10.
Lots of user control or if you're bored it can be in auto.
Megapixels don't mean a lot. All to do with the quality of the sensor thingy.
G10 was 14 megap's, G11 is 10 megap's different sensor in G11.

Yep noticed the other day that the G11 is now out ... not cheap though. Perhaps there may be G10s around a bit cheaper now.

The G10 served us well on our trip to Italy (bear in mind I am not a good photographer) ... but it is a pretty big camera. The gurus will say it is close to a proper camera but it is quite heavy (solid I s'pose) and not the sort of thing you can slip in your pocket ... I don't know if the G11 is any different in that regard.

What budget do you have Mmick?
Take a poke around at www.digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au

Everyone knows I am a Canon fan and would only ever buy the brand.

My opinion, you'd never be able to tell the difference between 6-8-10MP
Unless you were making pictures the size of your walls at home your eyes nor many peoples could pick it.

Happy shopping.
Matty...

The G11 is probably a great bet, but if you're considering the older G10, I'd strongly suggest a Panasonic LX3 instead.  That little beauty is every DSLR user's favourite backup.  It's tiny, has full manual and full auto, a wider-than-usual lens and some really stunning quality (image and build).

It's a nice looking camera, however every person I know who's had a Lumix has swapped it pretty quickly
for another brand due to excess image noise. Unless they have fixed this problem in there more recent Lumix
cameras I wouldn't go there.

But that's just me, you'll find many Oz Monster folk here with a Canon G camera in there pocket.
"Nothing to do with me" 

get a high optical zoom rating over a high digital zoom rating.
that's all i got

paul.

Very true.

Helped a mate buy a G11 about 3 hours ago. $600. but I'm in Beijing right now. He said that he could get the same sort of deal from flea bay. Not sure what retail is in Oz otherwise.

I've also got a G7(grandpa to the G11. I'm a Nikon fan myself - for DSLR), but the Gx series from canon are just fantastic quality cameras.

Canon EOS 400D.  It's a SLR but is point and shoot as much as you want it to be...  I actually use a 350D at work but I don't think they are available anymore.   A simply brilliant camera!!

Ita

I have the 350D too but it don't fit in any of my pockets and it got damn heavy after hiking the first few kms above 3000m. It gets left behind a lot when I'm on the bike too.  So next camera will be smaller. (Have been looking at the G10 for a while)

We've got a canon thing going on as well, both still and video.

All I can do is repeat what others said on the G10. Yes it's on the big side of point and shoots, but its an awesome camera for the enthusiast. I have not seen or used the G11 yet. It's newer so it much be better, right?

I'd be leaning towards a G10, hopefully there are some around for bargains, now the new one is out.

My husband is the photographer, he recommended this site as a good resource for all digital cameras.

http://www.dpreview.com/

He also said:

No matter what Camera you buy, the most important thing to remember when buying any Camera is that the LENS matters most. The industry markets Cameras by MegaPixels and Features, but the Lens is what brings the image into focus to be captured by the Camera. A lot of MegaPixels with a poor lens can only capture poor images.

More expensive cameras often have better lenses (but not always). Often the less expensive model, by the same manufacturer, has the same lens but omit features or offer fewer megapixels to keep the price down. Buy the best Lens you can afford. If your budget is limited, consider giving up MegaPixels or Features to get the better lens.

MegaPixels are equal to how big the image you are capturing can ultimately be. The maximum resolution (quality) of the image and the maximum size of the printed image are controlled by how many MegaPixels you have. Remember, most of us print our photos using 4x6 Photo paper and occasionally on 8.5x11 plain paper.

A 4 MegaPixel Camera limits the maximum print sizes to about 8X12 (4x the size of the typical print size). An 8 MegaPixel Camera offers 100% increase in the number of Pixels (over 4MP), but only provides a 50% increase in image size. Therefore the maximum effective print size is for an 8 MegaPixels is 12x18.

Much larger printed image sizes are possible than those listed above, however the resolution or quality of the image will begin to suffer the larger the printed image is made.

Remember also that we often crop images before printing. Cutting away portions of the image reduces the size of the original image. If you crop away half of the image you just reduced the resolution and the quality of the final print has effectively been reduced.

Oh and he also believes that Canon is the way to go.

Hmmmmm, Mega Pixie?? Is that a fat fairy??