Canon PowerShot SX100 IS 8.0 Megapixel

This is a just under $300 (street price at introduction) 8MP camera with image stabilization and a 10x optical zoom in a less-than 2" thick package. Very nice specs.

Pros:
- Optical image stabilization. This will let you hand-hold shots for longer exposures without a flash and keep them from being blurry due to hand-shake.
- Super telephoto zooming capability - most consumer point and shoot digitals top out at between 100mm and 150mm of equivalent telephoto range, whereas this one goes to 360mm.
- Offers a good basic feature set, including a wide range of shutter speeds, manual, aperture and shutter priority exposure modes, great close focusing capabilities, etc.
- Runs on (2) AA batteries, which is convenient.
- It's a Canon, so the user interface and durability are above average.

Cons:
- Wide angle coverage is nothing special (36mm effective).
- Lacks advanced features such as a hot shoe (for auxillary flash), full definition (non-JPEG) file formatting, and kelvin temperature-set white balance control.
- Battery life will be shorter than for most cameras with specialty batteries.

This is a great camera to get if you like the size of it, don't need more advanced camera features, and don't need better wide angle capabilities. I would consider it a great concert camera; it offers great telephoto range and image stabilization in a medium size that can fit in a reasonably sized pocket.

This camera is a slightly superior picture taker compared to the Canon ELPH cameras, all of which are thinner than 1". It's got a better lens and more features, but it is bigger. Buy an ELPH only if you need the smaller size.

A cheaper IS camera with less telephoto range would be the Canon A570 IS for under $200 or the A720 IS. Both are great cameras with similar feature sets and size to the SX100.

If you'd rather have wide angle coverage than telephoto coverage, consider the Canon SD870, which zooms from 28mm-105mm and is even smaller than this camera.

If you need more features, consider the Canon G7, G9, PowerShot S5 (offers even greater telephoto zoom), and the digital SLR's, all of which will offer a hot shoe and other more advanced features. If you're still unsure of what model has the features you want, check out dpreview dot com. They list specs of virtually all digital cameras in a very nice user interface.

I rate this camera "excellent" because it offers a unique and very handy feature set, takes great pictures, and should prove to be a relatively durable and useful camera.