My dad's office is interested in getting a digital camera. This is what my dad said would be what they're looking for:

$300
CF media
at least 3MP
good zoom
good battery life
easy to use
red-eye flash
light and compact

Probably the best one that fits this description is the Canon S30. That's the one you have, isn't it Tony? Unfortunately, the price is a little high. It amazes me that the S20 is $280 and the S30 is $440. That's a huge price difference for such a marginal difference, and it wouldn't matter to us if we didn't mind going below 3MP.

Any ideas?

I've got a Canon S20 - it's a good camera, but the battery life is poor.

If you can go with 2M pixels, the Canon A40 is a good budget camera.

It's only 2MP but I'm very happy with my Canon IXUS/ELPH/PowerShot 300

dpreview.com is a good place for digital camera reviews. Some of the stuff is named differently as it's a UK site but most of the stuff should still exist in the US.

- Trevor

Probably the best one that fits this description is the Canon S30. That's the one you have, isn't it Tony?

Assuming you meant this Tony, I don't have the S30, I have the S110.

It fails to meet two of the criteria in your list: Good zoom and long battery life.

In my case, I was willing to give up the zoom and the battery life so that I could have an ultra-compact camera (this thing is downright tiny). The extra battery is very small and easy to carry in a pocket, so that covers the battery issue.

The zoom is a bit more thorny. It's the only thing I find myself wishing were better on this camera. There have been times when I was not able to zoom in as far as I wanted to. I have to keep telling myself, "yeah, but if the camera weren't so tiny, you wouldn't have even brought it on this trip in the first place, so shut up about the zoom already."

Assuming you meant this Tony

They always mean you.. Although that new TTony guy over on the For Sale forum is the new low-man on the totem pole.

As for digital cameras, I'm in love with my Olympus C700-UZ. It won't meet your Dad's needs since it's "only" 2 megapixels, it uses SmartMedia instead of CF, and isn't the most compact digital (though it's miniscule when considering it has a 10x zoom lens.) But the 10x zoom is fantastic, and the battery life is off the chart.

I don't have one......yet.
But I did spend a bit of time reading on them over at www.dcresource.com

this is ripped shamelessly from their FAQ
Cheap: I have around $250-400 to spend. Well?
This is probably the fastest growing area, as most consumers buy cameras in this price range. Some of my favorites include the Canon PowerShot A10 and A20 (soon to be replaced by the A30 and A40), Fuji FinePix 2600 and 2800 (with its great 6X zoom lens!), Nikon Coolpix 2500, Olympus D-510Z, and the Sony DSC-P51 and P71.
Though I'm yet to test it, the 4 Megapixel Kodak DX4900 is an intriguing choice at only $399.

www.steves-digicams.com also has some good reviews

I've been a Nikon coolpix fan since the 950 way back in 1999.
Just placed an order the other day for a Coolpix 4500 ($699).
Tasty!!

You could get a factory refurbished Coolpix 990 (3mp) from www.nikonmall.com for $399 I think. Or a refurb 950 (2mp) for $299.

A really good review site with incredibly in depth reviews is www.dpreview.com.
There are lots of really good cameras out now, I'm sure you'll (or your dad) will find a good match.

Zachary

I have the S30, and was directly compairing it to the S110 Elpf at the California meet. The battery on the S30 lasts a decent amount of time, but does take up more bulk because of that.

I'm still trying to decide between the two, and may end up exchanging the S30 for the S110. I like 3MP cameras, but I never take it with me here. The S110 would easially fit in my front pocket of my motorcycle jacket and not be unconfortable. For me, I'll probably sacrifice the extra size of the picture to have more pictures.

One thing to also note, the S30 will accept Microdrives, while the S110 will not. With normal CF media into the 1gb range, and affordable around 256, thats not as big of an issue anymore.

The last thing I noticed was movie capability. The S30 will do a full quality movie for 30 seconds with sound, while the S110 could only do 10 seconds. The movie mode does come in handy from time to time, but isn't necessary.

And if you can't live without the 3MP, bump your price range up. If you do find a 3MP camera for $300, it's not going to be a good one. Oh, and avoid Kodak cameras at all cost. They are doing weird things now with base stations and such, making it harder to just plug in a simple cable to get your photos off the camera.

Nice camera for ~$360 - Kodak DX4900, 2X Optical/3X Digital Zoom, 2448 x 1632 pixel, 4.1 MP CCD, 1.5" LCD.

I'd recommend checking Got Apex? often, they list great deals on cameras quite often.

I've got a Kodak DX3700 as well and it does use a very plasticy base station to charge and download photos. You can still plug the leads directly into the camera though.

I've found it is just easier to take the CF card out and plug them directly into the PC, it's much quicker and I don't need to wait for the camera to recharge first. Of course this is assuming you've got a CF/PCMCIA slot.

The S300/S330 can do 30 seconds of movie with sound. It's only 30 seconds at the lowest resolution however. It's around 15 seconds at the highest resolution.

- Trevor

Thanks guys, we ended up getting a Canon S30. We had to pay a little more, but we got better quality. Oh well. Should be a great camera