Nikon D40, D60, Olympus E510? PLEASE help me choose a DSLR.

Roger and I are on the same wavelength - agreed that the older ultra-zooms were a bit better than the general state of the genre today...the megapixel race is hurting the newer models as much as it is in every other category of camera that can't stop cramming in ever-tinier pixel sites for the sake of a big impressive number of MP to put on the box. My H5 was probably near or at the pinnacle of that - already having pushed to 7MP from the still good 5MP H1 before it. Same can be said for the Canon S3IS and Panasonic FZ7, both of which may have been the best of their breed.

However, ultrazooms in general still provide fantastic bang-for-the-buck that is impossible to beat with anything else - with zooms ranging anywhere from 28mm to 560mm, big LCD screens, great movie modes, manual controllability, image stabilization, F2.8 sensitivity, HD compatability, small size, and light weight, all usually for under $500.

As for cameras to recommend - the Panny LZ10 looks to be decent for a discount camera...I guess it depends on how much you want to (or can) request as a spending limit. I would probably recommend the Panasonic TZ4 - it's $40-50 more expensive, but has a better pixel pitch, and an excellent flexible lens range of 10x, with a useful 28mm wide angle and more zoom.

I can't make any recommendations on Casio...not familiar enough with their cameras - I know the one you listed was discontinued some time ago, so you may want to look into their newer offerings.

The Canon S70 is a pretty old camera too. If you were willing to have a little more bulk, I'd take a look at the SX110 IS - it has a nice 10x zoom, stabilization, and manual controllability. If you just want slim and compact, then the SD880 looks pretty nice, and the Sony W120 or Panasonic LZ8 might be worth a look too (check out the dpreview budget compact shootout which looked at cameras in the $100-150 range - these two were the winners).

 

The TZ4 and SD880 have manual mode but no aperture or shutter priority.

The LZ10 does have those.


The Canon line seems to have the faster lens at the wide angle side, and the top two also had true wide angle at the widest end. Odd about the other features missing.

 

Here's Panasonic's site for it:

http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-elec ... 0000005702

 

I think both of those models don't have aperture or shutter priority modes. But they do have manual!