SX100 IS or A720 IS?

[digicamdude]

I can't decide which camera to get: Canon SX100 IS or A720 IS. From what I could see, the higher ISOs were identical, and it seemed that the SX100 IS had more purple fringing than the A720 IS. I don't really know though-could anyone give me any advice?
I don't like that the SX100 IS doesn't have a viewfinder, but I like the 10x zoom lens. Will the lack of a viewfinder make any significant difference?

Thanks!

[Photo-John]

What kind of shooting do you do? I am generally fine with just an LCD with a point-and-shoot camera. However, if I am shooting action and want to do some panning, the LCD doesn't really cut it. For smooth panning you almost have to have an optical viewfinder.

[digicamdude]

What kind of shooting do you do? I am generally fine with just an LCD with a point-and-shoot camera. However, if I am shooting action and want to do some panning, the LCD doesn't really cut it. For smooth panning you almost have to have an optical viewfinder.

I will be doing some panning, so I think maybe I should go with the A720 IS.

Not that I really have the money for it, but if I got the A650 IS, shot at the telephoto end (6x), cropped the 12 megapixel image down to 8 megapixels, would it be equivalent to a 10x zoom?

[Photo-John]

Not that I really have the money for it, but if I got the A650 IS, shot at the telephoto end (6x), cropped the 12 megapixel image down to 8 megapixels, would it be equivalent to a 10x zoom?

It's not exactly the same thing, and the match is a little over my head this early in the morning. Although cropping might give you the same basic framing of a scene, the optics are different when you change the focal length. With compact digital cameras it won't make as much of a difference as it does with SLRs. But the longer the focal length, the less depth-of-field you have and the more of a flattening effect there is on a scene. If you crop for the same composition, you have more depth-of-field and less of the flattening. For most people it probably won't matter. But if you want to make portraits or have an out-of-focus background, it matters a lot.