"Fast" compact point and shoot for the wife

[PNW]

My wife's Nikon L15 recently met an untimely demise. I'm planning on getting her a replacement for Christmas, but would like to remedy her #1 complaint with the camera. It took decent pictures but was excruciatingly slow at metering and focusing, so she missed out on several great shots of our pre/elementary school aged kids. To provide a little more reference: She's currently using and likes the performance of the Fuji S5000 I picked up right before our oldest was born but it's "too big". (While I won't think twice about lugging the SLR and 4 lenses around on a routine outing, she wants something that can just live in her purse. ) Given that this is highly subjective and dependent on the quality of lighting there are no standard metrics for this. DP Review's "full-pres lag" and "shot to shot" tests are indicative of what I'm looking for, but they only provide those for in-depth reviews and don't do many of those on point and shoots. I'm also looking for out of the box functionality. She's not going to be happy with me if she has to remember to turn off X,Y & Z for optimal performance. She pretty much wants to pull out the camera and start clicking away. As for image quality it just needs to produce decent snapshots.

Can anyone recommend a compact that's been good for capturing those unexpected moments ?

Thanks

 

[Roy Hobbs]

My wife's Nikon L15 recently met an untimely demise. I'm planning on getting her a replacement for Christmas, but would like to remedy her #1 complaint with the camera. It took decent pictures but was excruciatingly slow at metering and focusing, so she missed out on several great shots of our pre/elementary school aged kids. To provide a little more reference: She's currently using and likes the performance of the Fuji S5000 I picked up right before our oldest was born but it's "too big". (While I won't think twice about lugging the SLR and 4 lenses around on a routine outing, she wants something that can just live in her purse. ) Given that this is highly subjective and dependent on the quality of lighting there are no standard metrics for this. DP Review's "full-pres lag" and "shot to shot" tests are indicative of what I'm looking for, but they only provide those for in-depth reviews and don't do many of those on point and shoots. I'm also looking for out of the box functionality. She's not going to be happy with me if she has to remember to turn off X,Y & Z for optimal performance. She pretty much wants to pull out the camera and start clicking away. As for image quality it just needs to produce decent snapshots.

Can anyone recommend a compact that's been good for capturing those unexpected moments ?

Thanks

Canon SD780 IS ..... very small and light. Quick from Off to Ready to Take Pictures. Great picture quality and 720p HD video.

 

[drevil]

My wife loves her Canon SD 890 IS, small,fits in purse nicely,

 

[Chundles]

Canon S90 - the little brother of the G11.

Decent sized sensor for a P&S, 10MP, shoots RAW if you want, 3.8x Optical zoom with an f 2.0 lens. And it's little, really little.

 

[Kronie]

Do they make a fast P&S now? I mean without the delay? That's one of the main reasons I went DSLR years ago was when I went digital the p&s I bought had like a 3 second delay.

 

[Chundles]

Do they make a fast P&S now? I mean without the delay? That's one of the main reasons I went DSLR years ago was when I went digital the p&s I bought had like a 3 second delay.

My G11 focusses in a fraction of a second, vvt-vvt and it's done.

 

[ThunderRobot]

Do they make a fast P&S now? I mean without the delay? That's one of the main reasons I went DSLR years ago was when I went digital the p&s I bought had like a 3 second delay.

Depends what you mean.

I use the S90 as my pocket camera. It's fast to switch on and be ready to shoot. (Less than a second)

In good light auto-focus is fast. Indoors or poor light auto-focus takes a little longer.

Shutter lag is minimal. Burst shooting can get a little laggy after three or four shots.

Using manual settings and setting a hyperfocal distance for indoor shooting can produce very quick results indeed.

A P&S is (probably) never going to be as fast a DSLR but they've come a long way.

 

[nickXedge]

Check out the new Canon SD940. I believe it boasts the shortest delay from power on to first picture. I just saw a hands on review of it yesterday and if I had to replace my P&S, this is certainly the one I would get. Decent price point I think too.

 

[Westside guy]

The Canon S90 seems to be the best compact P&S out there right now. Good zoom range with a fast (f/2.0-2.8) lens) too. Sensor isn't too absurdly packed with pixels (relatively speaking - all compact P&S cameras have an absurd pixel count IMHO).

It does cost $400.