<p>The standard recommendation is the Olympus Stylus Epic, also known as the Olympus mju II. It's an auto-everything point and shoot with a fast-ish 35mm lens. Photo quality is excellent and the camera is tiny. There's not much in the way of manual control -- you can change the flash mode, and you can, if you know how, turn on a spot metering mode which is very useful in difficult lighting conditions. However, there's not a plethora of buttons to worry about. You open the camera, you press the shutter. That is all. The Stylus Epic/mju II just works -- it's a near perfect pocket/handbag camera.<br>
With zoom compacts, I've liked the Minolta Freedom Zoom Explorer, which has a pretty good lens. Some distortion at the wide-end, but it works really nicely. Bigger and more buttons than the Olympus. That means more control if you want it, but more confusing and less pocketable, too.<br>
At the higher end, I really like the Rollei AFM35 (aka Fuji Klasse S) which has a fantastic lens and full manual control over aperture and focus. However, it can be left in full auto mode with no problems and the basic interface is user friendly and shouldn't be confusing.<br>
Lots of people like the Yashica T4/T5, and also the Contax T series cameras, too.</p>
Please recommend an auto-everything P&S for an older camera novice
in Leica and Rangefinders
Posted
<p>The standard recommendation is the Olympus Stylus Epic, also known as the Olympus mju II. It's an auto-everything point and shoot with a fast-ish 35mm lens. Photo quality is excellent and the camera is tiny. There's not much in the way of manual control -- you can change the flash mode, and you can, if you know how, turn on a spot metering mode which is very useful in difficult lighting conditions. However, there's not a plethora of buttons to worry about. You open the camera, you press the shutter. That is all. The Stylus Epic/mju II just works -- it's a near perfect pocket/handbag camera.<br>
With zoom compacts, I've liked the Minolta Freedom Zoom Explorer, which has a pretty good lens. Some distortion at the wide-end, but it works really nicely. Bigger and more buttons than the Olympus. That means more control if you want it, but more confusing and less pocketable, too.<br>
At the higher end, I really like the Rollei AFM35 (aka Fuji Klasse S) which has a fantastic lens and full manual control over aperture and focus. However, it can be left in full auto mode with no problems and the basic interface is user friendly and shouldn't be confusing.<br>
Lots of people like the Yashica T4/T5, and also the Contax T series cameras, too.</p>