Point & Shoot Fast focus?

<p>I use the Olympus Stylus Epic (Mju II) quite a lot.<br>

When i use it for composed photography or daytime usual things it works fine, but when i use it as a "party P&S" camera, ive noticed that it often doesnt do the right focus (even when i do half press etc.. but sometimes its just very fast situations you have to be really quick). And it doesnt really work well for this situation. This is very important to me for my work though so im wondering what would be a good alternative with similar quality (and more importantly similar size) so i dont get as many lost shots?</p>

<p>Yashica?, Contax T?, Pentax ? </p>

<p>Anyone have experience for dinner and party shots with all of these?</p>

<p>Thanks<br>

Tinko</p>

 

<p>Canon Sure Shot 130u or similar would be my recommendation. Any of the later Sure Shots have an RT mode, which makes firing the shutter instantaneous, once focus and metering have been achieved. I don't know what the actual lag time is, but it truly seems like zero.</p>

<p>Have you tried spot metering mode? Press both buttons under the lcd simultaeneously and the spot meter icon will appear. I can't remember if this is also a spot focus mode.</p>

<p>I use an old Nikon Coolpix 5000. 2002 model? I think. Although it's still painfully taking a long time to write the file after each shot, I can get the shutter to release immediately by setting it on full manual. Manual exposure and manual focus. When manual focus my camera (I hope newer cameras do the same but they don't) display the focus distance in easy to read numerals so that I can simply estimate the distance and set the focus. The small camera has good dof and with a little practice you can estimate the distance quite very accurately. I don't use the meter either. I estimate the exposure, take a test shot and then go on. You will find that keeping the exposure the same for a situation is much better than trying to meter each shot.</p>