Best compact with a viewfinder?

chaos386

chaos386

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My mom's been making do with her PowerShot A530 for far too long, and I'd like to get her something really nice as a replacement. Her only requirements are that it must be small enough to fit in her purse (so even mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras are out, on account of their zoom lenses sticking out too much), and that it has a viewfinder (so she can see what she's shooting in bright sunlight). Also, she shoots in auto mode all the time, so stuff like manual modes or RAW formats don't matter to her.

I want to get her something that will take good photos in almost any condition, so I've been looking at some of the "premium" compacts that have 1/1.7" sensors or larger (It's been a while since I got my mom a really nice gift, so my budget is around $600). I'd also like to get her something that records decent quality video. The cameras I've been looking at are the Fuji X20 and the Panasonic DMC LF1. The Fuji has a larger sensor, but the Panasonic has a wider zoom range, weighs less, and is more compact.

Are there any other recommendations that people have? Anyone familiar with Fuji's and Panasonic's interfaces that can chime in on which one would be easier to learn and use?
 
My mom just upgraded her PowerShot A530 to an A1300. It's basically the same camera, only updated software and sensor.

Is she after an electronic viewfinder (which would take into consideration zoom factor) or only tunnel?
 
IceBone said:
Is she after an electronic viewfinder (which would take into consideration zoom factor) or only tunnel?
Click to expand...

No preference, as long as it follows zoom and allows her to compose the shot decently. Can't both optical and electronic viewfinders do this?
 
The one she has (a tunnel viewfinder) can't. That's just a hole through the body to look through. If she doesn't want to go for a DSLR, then an electronic viewfinder camera is what she's left with. I can recommend the Sony hx200v. I've played with it a bit, it has very good image quality, Sony's superb steadishot and and very good video.

It's not a compact, though, but a long-zoom.
 
There are some optical viewfinder compacts like the Canon G-series and many of their A-series compacts that zoom the viewfinder with the lens. Of course there'll be parallax issues, but it's (arguably) better than nothing. I think all the good ones have been listed; the Canon G15 and G1X are the only ones others I can recommend but they're on the larger side, especially the G1X.
 
Labcoatguy said:
There are some optical viewfinder compacts like the Canon G-series and many of their A-series compacts that zoom the viewfinder with the lens. Of course there'll be parallax issues, but it's (arguably) better than nothing. I think all the good ones have been listed; the Canon G15 and G1X are the only ones others I can recommend but they're on the larger side, especially the G1X.
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I'd also recommend a G series camera as well. Someone who shoots auto and wants to stick to compact P&S cameras will probably not even realize/understand what parallax issues are when using a compact camera OVF.
 
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