Comparison of digital compact cameras?

Question

I'm looking to buy a point&shoot camera for my sister to supplement her DSLR - but I don't know what I should get. I have a few ideas:

1) Sony W300

2) Fujifilm Finepix F100fd

3) Panasonic something (any recommendations?)

4) Canon something (again, any recommendations?) - I heard that canon cameras are the best in their image quality.

I'm looking for something that allows manual control - like aperture priority and shutter priority and options like that. I also want very defined colours with good saturation (but I think this is more to do with the photographer's skill) and little noise. The colour features that canon has are cool too but of course if another camera would produce better quality images, colour-fun is hardly going to be that important.

I've been on dpreviews.com but I get very contradicting reviews, and I don't really understand the specs. Also it doesn't help when I don't know which Panasonic/Canon camera to look at. So.. help please?

Thanks for the advice!

Answer 1

sony wsc-150, canon sd-870 is

Answer 2

Since your sister already has a DSLR I wouldn't worry too much about getting a camera that has all the features - if she wants lots of control she'll use her DSLR. My bigger concern with this is that DSLRs are big so she won't always carry it with her, so get a camera that's small enough that she can always have it on her.

I have the Canon SD1000 as a supplement to my DSLR. It's a little lacking on the manual controls but it takes decent pictures and is small enough that I ALWAYS have it in my pocket. Having the camera in my pocket allows me to be ready for those spontaneous shots when I don't have my DSLR with me.