need advice on pocket camera

[sagebrush]

Hi All, I'm thinking about a new digital camera. I have been waiting for the price to go down. I think it is there. I need something that will fit in my pocket and is lightweight, otherwise I leave it in camp. I want something fairly rugged and that takes the best pictures possible for a camera this small. I haven't looked at them for a while and would like some tips on models to look at. Thanks, Gary

[ncboman]

I dropped my old digital last summer and had to replace it. I looked around a bit and finally bought a Samsung Digimax 530 from walmart.

At the time I didn't have the moola to step out and buy the hi-dollar rig I wanted but I'm well satisfied with the Digimax.

It carrys well, in fact, I take it just about everyplace I go. I've taken thousands of pics with it and it still functions perfectly.

I did find it ate regular batteries fast but when I went to rechargable batteries and a memory card, it was an entirely different animal ... ie, I'm REALLY pleased with that aspect now.    

Here's a pic with the tele doing all the optical zoom will do (3x). (I don't like to go up into the digital zoom.)

 
250+yards
 
of course I played with the above pic some in my editing software.

Here's a couple with no editing other than resizing.

 
icy sprout

 
about 50yds

Here's a short description I found on the net;

 The Digimax 530 is a 5-megapixel camera with 32MB of internal memory, as well as a slot for up to 256MB of SD/MMC memory. It also offers autofocus, 3X optical and 4X digital zoom, continuous-shooting mode, multiple flash modes, adjustable white balance, variable ISO settings, and the ability to record movie clips with audio.

I'm no expert at all, in fact I don't even know how to work the thing but in a couple of modes so what I'm saying is; if I can consistantly get decent pics from it, it's a good camera and not hard to use.