digital camera needed -- speed and quality are a must

My goal is to make up to an 8x10, but normally the standard 4x6 size should be okay. I think I need at least a 4 MPixel setup.

First off, what is the term given to the amount of points the camera uses to focus an image? I plan on doing some "high motion" or action shots and having the speed of focus/lag time minimized is important to me: when I hit the button, I want the image to get recorded as fast as possible -- as fast as my film camera. Also, I'd like to write to a lossless format like RAW and I'm told some cameras do that very slowly.

Other features I think are important to me are:

-Price under 500 bucks if this is possible
-Minimum cycle time, or next-shot delay
-Ability to write a lossless format like RAW. I plan on touching up my images in Photoshop or Image Ready (also uncompressed TIFF is lossless right?

Any advise is welcomed. Thanks!

DIGITAL REBEL is the cheapest camera that I KNOW OF that fits your needs..... ABOVE $500 though.

I honestly can't think of any P&S that can keep up to a SLR with shutter lag and frames per second.

I may be missing a camera though ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paulnj

DIGITAL REBEL is the cheapest camera that I KNOW OF that fits your needs..... ABOVE $500 though.

I honestly can't think of any P&S that can keep up to a SLR with shutter lag and frames per second.

I may be missing a camera though ?

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Agreed. But, bluesky, if you learn how to pre-focus, you can save yourself lots of money! I routinely took images of sports with my Canon S400 by pre-focusing. But then, I grew up before AF was invented!

It's close, IMO I think it would make a great sports camera.
The street price is around $520
It has a 12x zoom f/2.8 image stabilized lens, which will be great for sports.
It has a 5mp sensor.
It has up to 9 focus points.
It offers a TIFF mode.

It does still have shutter lag, about .5 to 1 second, this can be minimized by pre focusing as Michael Fanelli says. It also offers continuous focusing or one shot focusing with a burst mode of up to four frames or more depending on quality mode. The biggest drawback is the ISO performance suffers above ISO 100 with 200 already showing some noise. Seems to me like a lot of camera for a decent price.
A DSLR would give you everything you are looking for, but the price is considerably higher, and you have to invest in a lens collection, and to match the 12x zoom and speed of the Pani you would be looking at quite a bit of money.