What camera in the $400-$500 range is a good choice?

"CaptainKrunch" wrote:

I had a DSC P92 Sony camera from Dec 25 03 till today. I was tired of the
extremely blurry shots even when held still and the lack of ability to do
quick candid shots as with a standard SLR camera. It ruins the pic if you
have to sit there for any length of time focusing on what is supposed to be
a candid shot and it turns out posed.

Of course the extreme bowing distortion of the sides of the pics were also
annoying. The last straw came today when I got an email saying my $50
rebate from Sony is invalid because they didn't receive it until after the
valid date. I sent it out the next day, 27 of December and they are
claiming they received it on Jan 20 for christ sake. Screw them so I
returned the camera to Sears and plan to purchase another one, and not
friggen Sony.

Thanks for any input even though this has been answered many times before in
some form. I have searched and found a few answers but would appreciate
more.

My requirements are manual contol over shutter speed, quick focus, decent
battery life, good lens and probably 3.2 mp or better. It would be nice to
have several manual options if possible.

Thank your for your time,

CaptainKrunch

The consensus of the majority in this newsgroup seems to be that nothing can
surpass the quality and price of a Foveon.