In my opinion, there is no best digital camera. In order to get excellent pictures of very good quality, you need to spend well over a thousand dollars on lenses and a DSLR. DSLRs and their lenses are fairly bulky and paint you as a target for thieves in the third world. However, some of the camera manufacturers have been turning up the heat recently with pocket cameras.

One camera I thought ideal for mongering is the Canon SD4000IS.

- Easily fits into a jean pocket.

- Looks more like a cellphone then a camera when turned off so you can more easily get pictures when in the club.

- Has a F2.0 lens, backlit CMOS and 3200 ISO capability combined with Canon's noise reduction system. Basically, its a camera that is specifically designed to take pictures in low-light without a flash.

- Has the same processor and mechanics that is found in Canon's higher-end cameras.

- All the image samples I examined online seem to be first rate and not what I expect from a pocket camera. Color reproduction excellent.

- Flash has 30% more power then other non-Canon digitals.

- Automatic "no brains" mode is the best one I have seen on pocket cameras. Usually when you put a camera on the automatic modes then you get mediocre pictures, but this one is pretty good.

Out of all of the above, I believe the low-light capabilities and stealthiness of this camera make it the best for mongering. It would be nice to snap a few pictures inside a club or bar, but it would be very awkward with a flash going off or with a bulky camera. You can pretend like this is your cellphone, but then get a few very good quality shots.

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-SD4000IS-Digital-Optical/dp/B003L77Y5S

I agree. When i saw this new SD4000IS, i said Oh this is a great bar companion. But you know, you will have many of these low-light performers coming out in the future, it is a market trend.
Zen.

I've been looking to upgrade my older and bulky SD800IS for a while.

I was looking at the SD3500IS. I like the wide touch panel and LCD on the back.

Will have to do a comparison between SD4000IS and SD3500IS now.

Wow. I am sold on the SD4000IS now. Just read this.

The camera also features a Super Slow Motion movie mode that captures at 240 frames per second (fps) and plays back at a much slower 30fps, providing a dramatic and spectacular record of fast-moving subjects.

Sounds like endless fun.

(Message edited by xenono on June 17, 2010)

I am looking at the cannon S90. It is not much bigger than most point and shoot cameras but it has excellent manual and semi-manual controls. It has a wide angle f2 lense, very good low light performance and can shoot in raw format.

Only down side that I see is price ($350 from amazon)and it doesn't do HD video.

H1

I just noticed that Overstock.com is now carrying some of the Canon products, which has some advantages as will be noted below. For example, they have the HF S200 and HF S20 HD camcorders as well as the SD4000 camera. All of these products are relatively new from Canon so we are not talking about out-of-date equipment.

The advantages of Overstock carrying these products are two-fold. First, if you access Overstock from the www.mypoints.com portal, you effectively get 6 United Airlines miles per dollar spent plus any additional airline miles your credit card gives you (the United Airlines points are not directly given, however. You get 12 my points per dollar spent, and once you have 10,000 points, these can be cashed for 5,000 United Miles; it is also possible to cash 5,100 my points for 2,500 miles).

Second, if you are a member of Overstock's Club O (which costs $20 per year), you will get a 5 percent discount on these purchases as well as free shipping. Since the price (prior to the 5 percent discount) for the Canon products is the same as can be found elsewhere, you therefore end up with a five percent discount, plus around 6 miles per dollar spent. If you value the miles at 2 1/2 cents per mile, which is the conventional wisdom (although it seems the value of miles is dropping a bit these days), essentially you end up with around a 20 percent discount relative to what these same items cost at JR, BH or Adorama. Not bad.

(Message edited by LAguy on June 20, 2010)

I should qualify the above by noting the price for the three Canon products I reference above are the same at overstock as elsewhere. However, some Canon products, such as the S90, cost more at overstock, thereby essentially negating the effective 20 percent discount I mention that derives both from the mypoints miles as well as the Club O discount.

So, as is always the case with these things, it pays to comparison shop.