Ive got far too many cameras
so I'll try to give you some advice.
Starting with my little one - its a Canon Ixus 800 (there are two newer models, the 850 and the 900 but they are all pretty similar and none will cost over £300). I bought this as I wanted something to keep in my pocket and to be able to whip out for snaps. I also wanted something that was good in low light. It ticks all the boxes really - takes great snaps is easy to use and is stylish and well made. It has a built in image stabiliser so its quite hard to take a blurry photo!!
There are a few down sides which may or may not be relavant to you. First there is virtually no manual control - fine if you just want to point and shoot but not so good if you like to experiment. The only two settings you can control is exposure (handy for fireworks) and ISO which is basically to do with light on the sensor - low numbers (100 or 200) for outdoor bright shots and higher numbers 400 / 800 for lowlight. Handy, but be warned, using the high numbers creats "noise" or speckles on the picture and this camera defaults to the high numbers in low light so you may need to tinker with the settings to get the best results. One other thing is it has no "sports" mode which I do miss as the fast shutter speeds are handy for lots of other things.
My second camera is a "bridge" camera which means its a bit inbetween a compact and a DSLR. I have the Kodak P850 but there are loads of others. The biggest advantage these cameras have is a HUGE optical zoom which I absolutely love! Also, you can manually set the camera however you wish. The drawbacks to this type of camera are they are bulkier because of the larger lens and suffer from "shutter lag" - a delay between taking the photo and writing to the card. The results from this camera though, are of course noticably better on zoomed objects than any small compact, so you have to weigh up whether you can live with the size for the sake of better photos! My Ixus has 4x optical zoom and the Kodak 12x so some difference!
My third is probably not something you will be interested in as its a DSLR -a Canon 30d not taken it to WDW yet (only got it this week actually!), but it is a bit of a monster with the lens Ive got on it, so I wont go into any details about that!
My MIL has had a few Sony's and to be honest, the pictures have never been great. Plus you are stuck with using Memory sticks which tend to be dearer than SD cards. I would recommend you check out the small Canons, the Minolta range - Ive had the Dimage Z3 which took fab pictures (Dh dropped it in WDW a few years ago hence we have the Kodak now!). If you check out the photo competition, look at some of Cazzie's pics - she uses a Minolta and the results are always great - the colours are fabulous! I loved the Z3 (probably now replaced with a newer model) and would consider another Minolta like a shot!
Sorry to go on but hopes that helps a little.
Allie
Fireworks would be nice, though not essential. No more than £400, and i would love to fit it in my pocket.
What lens have you got on it?
