Camera Choices
I often get people asking me for recommendations on point and shoot cameras. I don’t actually use these myself and never have one on me, so it seems a bit odd for people to ask me this. Oh well.
I do have two that I recommend — the Canon G9 and the Fuji F10, 20, 30 etc (same sensor pretty much, just different features). But people never, ever listen to me on these two. I don’t know why. Well I shouldn’t say no one listens to me. My friend Sonia bought the G9 and and raves and raves and raves about it and has great pictures to show for listening to me 
Why do I recommend these two? Because they take the best pictures. They don’t have the most mega pixels, face detection, and all the other marketing twists that obscures the turds most people are buying. At the end of the day your going to appreciate the fact that a camera has a good sensor more than the ability to go three feet under water (you can just buy a case for that).
The Fuji series is cheaper at around 200 dollars. The G9 is more at around 400. Both come down to what you might need.
The Fuji is just a good camera and is smaller. So if size is important and you want to trust the camera the majority of time go with this one. Also for it’s time it was the best at handling noise for a small sensor camera. You could shoot at ISO 800 and things would look pretty decent.
The G9 is more feature rich, takes external flashes, has more manual control options, etc. This is a camera more and more pros are using to test lighting before shooting medium format film. You can grow into this camera if you are a serious wanna-be 
Don’t take my word for it? Check this out. Well, they don’t mention the Fuji’s I’m talking about but do some research and you’ll find it for sure. Like here.
Really, if you ask me for advice on cameras these are the only two I’ll recommend (and they’re not paying me one single Baht). Even if you say, “what about XXXXX, it has shock proofing and some other random feature that the box says is super important and it comes with a carrying case and memory card and crappy tripod and it’s cheaper and it has face detection and its a color i like and it’s slimmer and…..?” I’ll still remind you these are the only two for the moment I’ll recommend.
If you want someone to reaffirm your purchase, ask your mom. If you want a real recommendation these are my two.
Paul
