Good digital cameras? - 1

I own Nikon DSLR cameras but I would never take them out to concerts or when out with friends etc… So I was wondering if anyone knows of a really good digital camera that's a reasonable price, takes great photos, fast shutter, and good for just every day use. (No Canon products please)

The Pentax Q (or Q10) has better image quality than you would expect from a small sensor and it's a tiny carry anywhere camera, they were available from SRS Microsystems in Watford for £199 including the 5 - 15mm lens last week, but, at that price, they may have all gone.

http://www.srsmicrosystems.co.uk/c/502/Pentax-Q-Cameras.html

Examples here

Fujifilm X100. Great images in Retro style. It is surely better than your nikon.

The best source of information for questions of this nature is http://dpreview.com/...review.com. If you ask on a forum most of what you will get is everybody's personal favorites. The market segment that you're looking for is what serious photographers would buy as a walk-about camera. Every major manufacturer has at least one model and they're all great cameras.

Too bad you ruled out Canon. I'm a Nikon user with a history of using D50, D70s, D200, D300, D5000, D600, and I find the Canon point and shoot line to be nicer than Nikon's. My most recent P&S is a Canon S100, which I love. Here is a side-by-side comparison from a concert last night, using practically the same settings on each camera. Click on the thumbnails to see:

I was an official photographer at this and other concerts, so I had permission to use various DSLRs. There are times when I'm just Joe Public and can't take the DSLR with me. That's how I was able to take the comparison shot above. I also took this concert shot with the S100 just to see how the image held up. It's not too shabby for ISO 3200.

In the process of choosing a camera, I narrowed it down to the Canon S100 and Nikon 7700, with particular concern for concert and other low light use. It's the sensor size that matters. I think the Nikon 7100 is still out there, closing out at prices under $300, so you might want to check that out. In the end, the pocket size of the S100 was the deciding factor for me, but you might be fine with the larger Nikons.

If you want to see a few more S100 samples, you can check out