are there any worthy non-Canon subcompact P&S out there?

[LS21]

Instead of just asking "whats the best camera for <300$", let me give you a background so you can see my point of view:

I got my first dig 8 years ago with Canon Elph S330. Back then, there weren't too many choices -- mainly Canon, Nikon, and Olympus. The Elph had a clear advantage in form factor.

After a year of service, I moved to S30, and S40, for a few more advanced features (long shutter, aperture/shutter priority, etc). Elph line adopted SD moniker and I bought SD400 and SD450. (Also bought a bunch more for others).

All those years, it was an easy choice to stick within Canon family, because it was THAT much better than everything else.
Nikon - good picture but poor controls.
Sony - absolutely slow.
Olympus - bad form factor.
Kodak/Fuji - bad everything.
Casio introduced the Exilim line, which looked very impressive, but it was very much fashion over form; not ergonomic, difficult controls

I gave away my SD450 and thus need a replacement. Now, there are TONS and TONS of affordable, alloy-body subcompacts. Many more choices than before - panasonic, leica, pentax, etc... are any of them worth looking at???
Of course I checked out the bible - dpreview.com - but *manY* of them are not reviewed.

In summary, what im looking for:

1) decent picture quality
doesnt have to be great. obviously, picture quality is *independent* of pixel count, and honestly ill be happy with 4mp. looking for accurate colors, dynamic range, sharpness, etc etc)
2) INTUITIVE CONTROLS
easy access to flash modes, ISO selection, white balance, EV, etc... Canon used to be awesome at controls
3) GOOD SPEED
quick turn-on, short flash-lag, fast focus, etc. again, Canon was king
4) good form factor
im no longer a photobug. dont need huge camera with tons of features. looking for something small and sleek that disappears in a pocket... but still retains ergonomic (ie no flashy mega-slim cameras)
5) "wide" angle
not a high priority, but i prefer wider than longer. ie. would rather have 28mm-105mm than 38-150mm (equivalent)


5 years ago I would go to the store and buy the first Canon that fits my price range, because it meets criteria listed above. Is this still the case? Should I just snap up an SD1100 or are there other offerings worth looking at? Thanks

 

[keeleysam]

Just buy the Canon and be done with it.

 

[ElFenix]

i like the panasonic fx series. they have actual wide angle lenses. the new fx35 has a 25-100mm lens. the fx-500 has a 25-125 lens that is about half a stop faster on the wide end. each features a larger than usual sensor so they might be a little less noisy. though both of those are more spendy than the SD1100. review on amazon suggested to zoom in a step to avoid barrel distortion. flash to flash time is slow, but the camera can continually track subjects for AF and adjust without even a half press of the shutter so shutter lag should be good. the 500 weighs a lot for it's size, apparently.

i would really like a canon S90, but i doubt that's coming.

compacts don't have dynamic range and most of them are out of the box set to crowd-pleasing, rather than accurate, colors. most of them have a pretty decent amount of sharpening applied by default.


the fx500 has full manual, and aperture and shutter priority. interesting

fx500 review
seems the site reviewed the fx35 back in march.

 

[Jawo]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
Just buy the Canon and be done with it.

I would agree. If you have had good luck with them (as have I), why change, OP?

 

[AmpedSilence]

Originally posted by: Jawo

Originally posted by: keeleysam
Just buy the Canon and be done with it.

I would agree. If you have had good luck with them (as have I), why change, OP?

Seriously, You know the controls, you know the quality, why not keep with it?

I have the SD800 IS and I freakin love it. I just have to hack it with the Canon HDK (Link), unlock RAW and live histogram and other faults that i find with it and you have all the features of a DSLR in the compact form factor. Given you might get a bit more noise, but still it would be pretty fantastic.

Samples of my SD800IS are in my Prague Category in smugmug account linked below (and most of the other pictures are taken with the A80, I'm a Canon person also 🙂)...