I second dpreview.com, great site.

I've had several compact cameras, Canon S10, Canon S100, Sony P1 and my recent and best one, the Canon S30. There are several reasons why I've been upgrading and changing and IMHO, the S30/S40 is the best compact one you can get. Great photos, ease of use, full manual control if need be, compact, fast, self-enclosed lens cover, etc...

Good stuff... here's a few quick samples of completely unretouched full res photos from the S30, click links for hires versions.



http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1424...ence=0&res=high

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1424...ence=1&res=high

 

the issue i have yet to adjust to, having spent half a lifetime behind a 35mm slr is the slow reaction time on a digital camera to taking the shot after the shutter has been pulled. i hate going to an autox and getting shot after shot of the car half out of the frame because the camera is so slow. i guess it is all conditioning. i would rather pull the trigger on the 35mm slr motor drive and rip through a roll of film knowing that i have the shot than try and try with a digital, checking the pic in the preview screen. as a pro photo major i just love ripping through film and then having all my pics loaded to a cd. experience has taught me the shot i think is no good at he time may well be the breadwinner after processing. sorry, i got off on a tangent - you are only interested in digital.

 

It sounds a steal! How many pixels? I can't emphasise enough to go for 3 million pixels if you can. If the quality isn't there in your shots it will bug you eventually. The thing I like about my Coolpix is they've kept the modes and operating system as close as possible to their Nikon SLR's, so if you use a Nikon SLR, which I do, you're pretty familiar with the way it works.

Some good points made in other posts. There is a shutter lag time which would be a bind for action shots.

Most digital cameras are over-sensitive to red colours(record them more vivid than they are). I took a picture of my wife recently wearing a plum colured jumper which turned out bright red! This can be rectified in Photoshop etc with a mask and adjusting colour levels. To put this in perspective, colour film stock can be oversensitive to different colours depending on the film used.

I love the whole idea of digital photography. With a little practice you can do anything in Photoshop with your shots.