which digital camera?

[Sniper82]

Sony DSC-W50
Canon A540
Canon A530

All are the same price give or take $10. I really like the Sony Compact design but I am mostly looking for best pic quality.

 

[LouPoir]

Canon is the top camera manufacturer -

 

[Farmer]

LouPoir:

In your opinion, perhaps.

 

[Joerg]

You seem to really want a cannon or sony, but personally for a compact camera right now you wont beat fuji for picture quality. The new fuji super ccds are murdering cannons, oplypuss, and sonys right and left. Check out the f30, and f31d or even the s6000 for a more prosumer based camera. The best part is their high iso performance is nearly on par with budget dslr's and that equates to indoor pictures that look ten times better than those taken with any budget compact cannon.

 

[Ika]

best pic quality? Fuji for sure. Specifically, I know the F30 is really amazing. I'm not too sure about Fuji's other cameras, but the F30's performance compared to other (comparable) cameras really blew me away.

 

[Sniper82]

Well each camera I listed can be had for $150-$160 which is really the most I am looking to spend. Any better ones in this price range?

 

[HiME]

What do you expect to get out of the camera? Some basic functions like shutter speed, ISO sensitivity, and optical zoom should be the most important factors that you should consider.

I'd suggest the Canon A540 due to it's better zooming, 4x vs 3x for Sony. It also has a far better battery management. It uses 2AA NiMH instead of sony's Lithium-Ion NP-BG1 rechargeable.

SD/MMC card and Sony's Memory Stick are the 3nd largest difference between those two cameras. Anyway it should not be an issue as both formats are equally good IMO.

 

[Trippytiger]

I have the Canon A540, and I think it's a great little camera. It has a nice long zoom for a compact camera, uses standard AA batteries, has a nice big LCD (although it is very low-resolution), takes SD cards, has some good video modes, and gives you full manual control over shot settings. The pictures look very sharp, and I'd say they're definitely better than most of the other cameras in its price range that I compared it with when I bought mine. Of the three you listed, I think it's by far the best choice.