Best value @ $200

I want to give my sister a new P&S camera for her B-day. She has no preference on brand.

Budget is $200 and I see many many models. I've noticed if you want a 10x zoom or more you lose a lot of features.

So who has the best P&S for that price?

I want it to shoot 1080 video.

I've looked at the following:

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX9

Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS

Nikon CoolPix S8100 Digital Camera


DSLR's I know, but these P&S's are greek to me. Which one has the best glass? The Carl Zeiss?

Any info you can offer I would greatly appreciate. Thanks!

The best glass? Its pretty much 6 in 1, half a dozen in the other on point and shoots, whatever mild difference there may be will be relative to the budget. The thing to look for is what functions the lens has, its zoom range (in fov equiv), its aperture range, and its aperture capacity. Many of the cameras that offer manual control only offer aperture control in wide open and two stops down, some offer it only in wide open and f/8.

Maybe the canon sx130is, or the Olympus VR 320, though they are 720p video. Any reason for 1080p? I don't think the file size difference, combined with the P+S quality of these pocket cam's is really ideally paired with 1080p. I think 720p is the more efficient option. Though, most 1080p capable cameras of course will downscale resolution and offfer 720p as well. Those 2 cam's are a great optical zoom range value for the price category.

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Originally Posted by maplestreet

I want to give my sister a new P&S camera for her B-day. She has no preference on brand.

Budget is $200 and I see many many models. I've noticed if you want a 10x zoom or more you lose a lot of features.

So who has the best P&S for that price?

I want it to shoot 1080 video.

I've looked at the following:

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX9

Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS

Nikon CoolPix S8100 Digital Camera


DSLR's I know, but these P&S's are greek to me. Which one has the best glass? The Carl Zeiss?

Any info you can offer I would greatly appreciate. Thanks!

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The differences between the lenses of these three cameras gets lost in the software of the cameras. Between the three cameras which camera is the one your sister will be able to operate the best?

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Originally Posted by Anbesol

The best glass? Its pretty much 6 in 1, half a dozen in the other on point and shoots, whatever mild difference there may be will be relative to the budget. The thing to look for is what functions the lens has, its zoom range (in fov equiv), its aperture range, and its aperture capacity. Many of the cameras that offer manual control only offer aperture control in wide open and two stops down, some offer it only in wide open and f/8.

Maybe the canon sx130is, or the Olympus VR 320, though they are 720p video. Any reason for 1080p? I don't think the file size difference, combined with the P+S quality of these pocket cam's is really ideally paired with 1080p. I think 720p is the more efficient option. Though, most 1080p capable cameras of course will downscale resolution and offfer 720p as well. Those 2 cam's are a great optical zoom range value for the price category.

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Thanks for the responses.

No reason for the 1080 Ambesol. Just wanted it to be high def and the P&S I have, (the Canon sx120is) only goes up to 480 and it's pretty poor quality. So I was just looking for a big step up from that. However if you think the 720 is more efficient then I'm open to suggestion. That opens up a lot more options in this price range.

The only reason I mentioned Glass is that I was looking at a Sony Cybershot but one of the reviews said it sucked cuz it didn't have the "Carl Zeiss Glass". It gave me pause because I wouldn't think there was a big difference on P&S glass so that's why I asked.

I like that Olympus you showed me. It's the slim design I'm looking for. I dont think I'll go with Nikon because all the Point and Shoots have the touch screen, I tried it out in BestBuy and it seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth.

Thanks again, I'll let you guys know what I ended up with. Just want to get the best bang for my buck.

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Sony Cybershot but one of the reviews said it sucked cuz it didn't have the "Carl Zeiss Glass"

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Thats a load, lol. Kind of like that Nikon commercial with Ashton Kutcher, "its lens, makes it a Nikon", they said this in reference to one of their run-of-the-mill point and shoots with absolutely nothing special about the optical quality. The quality of the optics are all comparable on that tiny image circle, what little difference exists is mitigated even further by the excess of image grain from the tiny sensor and different sensor performances.

720p is a significant difference above 480p, much more significant than the difference between 720 and 1080. Its particularly better on current model cameras because of better noise performance as well.

The olympus is certainly is a sleek design, but it does not have manual or priority modes available, only auto modes, the Canon has the manual/priority modes.