I recommend Canon IXY 6 meg for an all round pocket camera. I recommend the Canon S3 IS for long distance shots.

Canon IXY is the Japanese name or SD 700 IS is the North American name

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0602/06022 ... .asp#specs

This is a pocket camera with excellent quality, and continious shot function. 800 ISO means low light with no flash required. Canon IXY 6 meg pixel 4X lens(lots of excelent features including canon`s outstanding video feature). It has great colour saturation and ISO manual 80-800 selection feature. I purchased it for $440 in Japan including 512meg card, and plastic　film to protect the huge view screen.
I checked out the reviews on the internet and the battery life was a complaint, however I have found the battery lasts a long time. The problem is the battery warning time before it dies is very short. That is my only complaint. We have considered buying another battery and that would ensure we always have a charged battery although that hasn`t been an issue yet even though I am taking huge numbers of pictures on holidays in Japan.

Casio Exlim 10 meg pixel looks good too but only has a 3X lens. Which gives a similar zoom to the canon however the colour saturation and picture quality is likely not as good as having a quality lens

There is a huge difference between a 3X and a 4X (140 mm)lens. Also, the canon has a shorter min. focal length. When taking pictures from long distance obviously the more powerful lens the better. a 12X lens (400 ish mm) is much more powerful as recommended in the other reviews (such as the Canon S2 IS

Canon S2 IS has the 12X lens

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/contr ... elid=11368

I noticed that the Canon S3 IS is out now too!! It appears to have similar newer technology that I have in the Canon IXY 800 IS (Canon SD 700 IS)(same camera different name) that I purchased.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0602/06022111canons3is.asp

Turtle