"Jane Galt" wrote in message
. ..
"Neil Harrington" wrote :


"Jane Galt" wrote in message
. ..
I'd like to consider a newer purse sized Coolpix. I have the 4500 which
is nice, but not exactly purse sized.

I like to do a bit of low-light shooting without flash, so it looks
like the
S8000 isnt up to that, though the 10x optical zoom sounds nice.

I enjoy mostly scenery and non-flash shots of our shoulder pet birds.

My purse cam is now a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S750 but the image quality
isnt as
nice as the Coolpix. I suspect Nikon makes better quality lenses?

So suggestions?

I need to keep this in the under $300 street price range.

Of the current crop of Coolpixes, the S640 looks about the best for your
purposes. Its lens is a relatively fast f/2.7 at the short end and it
also has Nikon's "4-way VR" -- both of which will help in low-light
shooting. The "4-way VR" is actually a combination of optional features
and includes Nikon's exclusive Best Shot Selector feature, by itself a
big help in low-light shooting (BSS lets you hold the shutter release
down for up to 10 shots, then saves the sharpest one; since
slow-shutter-speed shots usually vary a lot in sharpness, this helps a
great deal). Also part of the "4-way VR" is the camera's offering auto
ISO settings up to 6400 -- great for low light, though at the cost of
increased noise. I have found high-ISO settings very useful in Coolpixes
despite the increased noise, but I may be more tolerant of noise in
photos than some other people.

I don't have that particular model myself so can't speak about it from
experience, but I do have a gaggle of other relatively recent Coolpixes
and have consistently fine results from them all. The S640 has a MSRP of
$219.95, so street price should certainly be no more than that. And it
is very compact -- no problem at all for your purse, you could carry two
or three there if you wanted to.

Before coming back here to see this, I've been loking around, and am very
tempted by the Powershot SD4000IS now, except for the price. Whew. Then
the
Coolpix S8000 is PHAT too. sigh What to do, what to do....

Buy one of each? :-)

The S8000's lens is just over 2/3 stop slower (f/3.5 vs f/2.7 of the S640),
which gives the S640 a slight advantage in low-light shooting, all else
being equal. Also the S8000 does not have quite the wide-angle capability of
the S640 (30mm equiv. vs 28mm), which might be of some importance to you
since you've mentioned your interest in scenery. These are reasons I
suggested the S640 as being perhaps the best choice for your purposes.

Yes, the 10x zoom is nice, provided it works well. I had (very briefly) a
Coolpix S10 which also had a 10x zoom, nice lens except for its horribly
unreliable autofocus at the longer focal lengths, which made it practically
useless. I promptly returned it for that reason, the only Coolpix I have
ever returned. Of course that doesn't mean the S8000 has a similar problem,
but it did tend to make me leery of superzoom lenses in very small cameras.

Other than that, the S8000 has what advantages? It's a 14-megapixel camera
instead of the S640's 12, but the 12 is already cramming far too many pixels
into such a tiny sensor as far as I'm concerned. I have Coolpixes in 8, 10,
12 and 14 megapixels -- and I routinely set them all to 5 megapixels. The
Great Megapixel Race serves no purpose as far as I can see except to help
manufacturers sell more cameras to people who think their pictures aren't
sharp because they don't have enough megapixels.