Need a p&s to go with my 20D

danger. the G6 and older cameras have attrocious noise levels, and that seems to be on your priority list pretty high. ive used the G7 (in store lol). and other than being a bit awkward to hold after using a DSLR its got amazing build and pretty much everything you are after - the battery and CF card.

Billginthekeys wrote in post #2514368
yes but no. you can look through it, but there is NO way i would try to frame an image with it. infact its pretty useless to anyone who knows photography. first off, theres no exposure or any other form of data in it, so dont be expecting that. Second, it doesnt look through the lens like an SLR, hence and SLR is an SLR. Third it has what they call Parrallax Error because the small lens that it does look through it not actually in line with the lens. and Last, it makes almost no attempt to actually frame equally with the image you will get.

So in short optical viewfinders on P&S's are underwhelming (more like downright worthless) at best.

I'd have to disagree with this. I primarily use the optical finder on my A620. If you know your equipment you'll know how it's going to do for framing; if you know your equipment you know whether you can trust autoexposure. I generally use the LCD only when it's swung out for "periscope" purposes or to check the histogram in odd situations. Millions of people have used optical viewfinders with complete success, even though they didn't have a full information display in the finder. A few notable examples: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Elliot Erwitt; Margaret Bourke-White.

Get the S3 IS..............it uses AA batteries, up to 800 ISO, and has IS.

yea, the S3 is a great P&S camera. It has ISO800 but anything over 400 starts to get noisy. the IS is GREAT and get a set of Energizer 2500mah rechargables and you'll easily get 400 shots out of it... and a plus (for me at least) is a 12x optical zoom

it has the manual modes, selective coloring, focus and exposure bracketing, etc...

Only thing is it doesnt use CF... it uses SD

EllenC wrote in post #2509328
I need to be able to shoot in RAW and would like to use the same batteries as my 20D but that's just a bonus. I don't anticipate needing more than 6mp. IS would be great as I will be hand holding in low light and will need fast lens.

Well, based on these requirements, none of the A-series or SD-series will fit the bill. RAW capability ended with the G6 and the G6 takes 20D batteries.

I have the A710is. It does allow for manual shooting and the IS helps quite a bit, but again, you have to do without the RAW. Shutter lag is not as bad as digicams past. One negative is the very long recharge time after a shot that used flash. I've learned to live with that, given that there are so many more positives about this camera.