New camera advice needed

Hi
I have a Canon Powershot A20 I've had since it came out a few years ago.
It's 2.1 megapixel. I want to upgrade to a larger megapixel. Here's a list
of what I would like in a new cam. Any advice appreciated.
-Would like pocket camera
-Would like largest megapixel poss
-Good flash. My Canon doesn't do good in semi-dark/darker rooms for flash.
pix turn out dark. Example is in a school gym that's lit well, it the kids
are any distance much from me, they are dark.
-simpicity of features and point and shoot
-video is not necessary, would prefer it not to be on there.
-Good optical zoom

what bout this one?
Canon PowerShot S50

Thanks,
Mark

"Mark" wrote in message
...

Hi
I have a Canon Powershot A20 I've had since it came out a few years ago.
It's 2.1 megapixel. I want to upgrade to a larger megapixel. Here's a
list
of what I would like in a new cam. Any advice appreciated.
-Would like pocket camera
-Would like largest megapixel poss

The Minolta DiMAGE Xg (3.2MP) and the Pentax Optio S4i (4MP) and S5i (5MP)
are all truly shirt-pocket sized and are excellent cameras. I have the
Minolta Xg and the Pentax S4i and love 'em both.


-Good flash. My Canon doesn't do good in semi-dark/darker rooms for flash.
pix turn out dark. Example is in a school gym that's lit well, it the kids
are any distance much from me, they are dark.

That's likely to be a hopeless situation, especially for a compact or
ultracompact camera. Most of them don't (and really can't) have very
powerful flashes to begin with, and in a place like a school gym you're most
likely trying to do something that no single in-camera flash can do. If it's
lit well as you say, turn off the flash. That will at least prevent the kids
at a greater distance from being badly underexposed. The slower shutter
speed may give you motion blur, but outside of increasing the ISO setting
(which may carry its own drawbacks) there isn't much you can do about that.


-simpicity of features and point and shoot

The Xg, S4i and most other compact cameras today are simple enough to use.
Just leave the camera in full program mode and ignore whatever features you
don't need.


-video is not necessary, would prefer it not to be on there.

It's likely to be there anyway, in any new camera you buy. Just ignore it.


-Good optical zoom

The cameras mentioned have very good 3x optical zooms, which are typical.



what bout this one?
Canon PowerShot S50

Very nice, perhaps more camera than you need as it's much more advanced than
the usual point-and-shoot. I think it's been discontinued but it's probably
still available in some places. Newer versions are the S60 (like the S50,
5MP) and S70 (7MP) which have some useful improvements over the S50.

I have the Canon S60 myself and it's a wonderful camera. Pocketable--though
not nearly as pocketable as the aforementioned Xg and S4i ultracompacts it
may be pocketable enough for you. It does have an unusually powerful flash
for a compact camera so you'd like that, though the school gym situation
would still probably be asking too much from it.

N.




Thanks,
Mark