Ok so i went out and bought an Olympus 500 back in the summer and am quite happy with it, except for one, albeit major, detail. It is practically impossible to take photos without the flash on. If I was to get a tri-pod and spend the time setting it up etc. I would get great low light photos, without the annoying blur. But I don't feel like spending the time to do so. My question than is, does anyone have a suggestion for a digital camera that has Image Stabilizing that will let me take photos without an intrusive flash. My wife and I are going to have a baby soon, and I don't want all the shots to have flash. What I am looking for is preferably a point and shoot with at least 5.0 pixels in a price range of about 300-400 bucks. I can't seem to find any. SLR's are great and all but I don't want to spend 1,000 bucks.
what's the best camera i can get with $200? I don't take pictures very often so i refuse to expend more than 200, what would you guys advice?
Cut a small piece of cardboard out and use scotch tape to cover the flash..Try that. go here. http://www.dcresource.com/buyersguide/ ~worm~
That's actually not such a bad idea. Take a piece of wax paper and drape it over your flash. It'll soften the light, while still helping get the scene bright enough. You can use multiple layers if it's still too bright and the scene is too "flat". Does your camera let you adjust shutter speed at all? Or is it only fully automatic?
You can get a Nikon DM50 for $699-including a 18-55mm lens. I would spend the extra money for this DSLR. But if you don't want to go that route, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1K is the camera you would want IMO. $499, 8MP, flexibilty with ISO and shutters speed, image stabilization, Leica optics, and shoots at true 16:9 ratio. I'm thinking about picking this one up. It's a little noisy at the higher ISO, but that might not be an issue for you.
Ray's advice was good. However, it is 20 hours old, so it is now totally obsolete and worthless. Stupid digital camera market. Actually I think all curent Panasonics have some sort of image stabilization, even down to their $200 models. Take a look. But to take low light images without a flash you need a lens that takes in a lot of light (only on SLRs, and they have shallow depth-of-focus that tend to show the limitations of autofocus) or low noise sensors (forget that in a point and shoot, outside the Sony DSC-R1).