Help Choosing a P&S

I thought I was going to get the SD 800is for the IS function and because of Canon Quality, however, upon doing some research, I am now stuck between three cameras. (By the way, I am a staunch Canon fan owning 20d x 2 and 3 L lenses).. I'm leaning towards the panasonic just for the raw capability in case i need it (just need a good all around versatile pocket camera).

Canon 800 is.....IS is great, but no AV or TV controls...7 MP and sleek and solid but no RAW.

Panasonic Lumx LX2....10.1 MP and RAW (a great advantage). Heard there is significant noise as ISO goes up on this guy but the canon apparently (per CNET) has pretty grainy noise at anything iso 800 or more. Has an AV/TV mode...a plus! Does ave the OIS....is that equivalent to the canon IS???

Casio Exilim 850 .... 8.1 MP, small and solid. Has a pretty good macro mode (ebay mode) but again, no RAW. Has AV/TV control albeit the setting options are quite limited.

Advice/reccomendations would me much appreciated as Best buy has a sale that ends tomorrow on the canon!

Thanks!

Nobody here has a whole lot of experience with non-Canon brands. Plus it's the weekend - people are out shooting not here posting.

I've had great experiences with the A610 and A620 (A610 being my dads camera... and A620 being the one I upgraded to and bought myself).

Hi, rvt1000! I have 20D too and IMO nobody beats Canon in DSLR field. But when it comes to P&S, I'm not such a "patriot".
For me the biggest issue in all P&S is NOISE. So after very long research I stopped on Fuji F-30. It has the best noise handling in it's class combined with exellent IQ. Check out forums like dpreview. F30 has exellent rating there.

I also have Panasonic FX-07. Leica lense and new chip make superb IQ but only in good light in ISO no more then 100. In low light it's noisy like hell.

And if you want RAW, full manual control and great noise-free images up to ISO 800, check out Fuji E-900. This cam is one of it's kind and they are selling now for less then $300. It's a steal for this kind of camera.

Hope this will help and good luck with purchase.

P.S. I would think twice about BestBuy. Especially when I'm not sure what camera I need.
They charge 15% restocking fee for returned item unless it's defective.(just in case you don't know)

Hey...IMHO if you want Av/Tv/M modes you should just go DSLR.

if you want P&S you gotta deal with what you get.

Well it's not exactly a pocket camera but if you need a backup or just a all around shoot the dog type camera the fuji s7000 is a great p&s that also has RAW functions

i've heard a lot about the f30, thanks for the input. I'm gonna check that out ...any other input in the meantime is well appreciated...

And I'd love to carry the 20d w/ 24-70L around with me in my pocket if I could but I don't think that's feasable

Ok, so after all the input from this and a few other forums, I've narrowed it down to the Fuji F30 (like it for the low light sensitivity) or the Canon sd 800is (like the IS).

So last time around, can I get a vote and why?
Thanks you all!

As a 20d user for most of the time and beeng "spoiled" by it's high ISO handling, I went for f-30. (sd800is was in my list too)
My thoughts were that IS works only for camera shake, not for moving subject. Yes, you can boost the ISO but you'll get unacceptable noise on sd800.
With f-30 you can go up to ISO 800 with the noise amount comparable with ISO 200 on sd800. And if you go all the way to 1600 and even 3200 the noise is easily fixable in NR (I'm using Noiseware Pro). This way you can reduce both camera shake and motion blur.

Have you checked here?
http://forums.dpreview​.com …rum=1012&messag​e=20765785

Oh, and to feel more secure , buy from Costco if possible.