Camera for mom

[perry]

I'm thinking about getting mom a new digital camera for Christmas (or convincing her to get herself one if she won't let me spend the money..). She currently has a Canon A60 and her biggest complaint is the time it takes for the picture to be taken after she hits the button. She's gotten used to the Canon software, so, everything else being equal, a Canon would be preferred.

Any modes other than "auto" won't get used by her, maybe she'd use a video mode, but that's doubtful. She wants to pick up the camera, point it at something, and click the button to get a picture. She likes to travel, taking a couple big trips a year and several smaller ones. Taking AA batteries is a big preference in case she forgets to recharge her rechargeables. Her A60 wasn't the smallest camera, but it's a good size and the button's aren't too hard to hit. I'm afraid itty-bitty cameras would be too hard to use, and maybe a bigger camera would also have a bigger screen that'd be easier to see.

She likes to take her memory card in to Wal-Mart and print out pictures, so the memory card door needs to be durable. She has one of those small HP photo printers, but it doesn't get used much.

I'm thinking around $200 - $250 is the budget. Whatta ya say?

 

[Jim]

Shutter lag is a problem on small Point and Shoot cameras. I have no sugestions about that unless you went with a DSLR.

 

[perry]

Yea, DSLR is definitely overkill. My Canon S3 would be quick enough for her, but even that would be just too much camera for her.

The A720 IS is looking good right now. Better zoom than her A60, the image stabilization will come in handy for her, etc. I think the speed would be acceptable too.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/canon_a720.html

The shooting performance was outstanding for a camera in this class. It was able to power up and capture an image in just 1.7 seconds. The shutter lag was normal at 1/10 of a second, but fast when including the auto focus at just 4/10 of a second. When shooting in single shot mode, you can capture an image once every 1.9 seconds without a flash and 3.5 to 6 seconds with the flash, depending on the subject distance and battery life.

 

[vespergo]

check out dpreview if you haven't already. they have a list of the cameras and show lag times on each... but unfortunately as Jim says you gotta go to DSLR in order to get out of the lag time factor (at least that's my experience)