First hand opinoins needed

[foryorent]

Hello,

I have been looking for a high quality point and shoot camera for my girlfriends jewlery design business, something that she can use to take high quality photots of her products for use on a web site, sales material ect... It must also be quite small so I can be used as a everyday camera for personal use. From research around the web I have narrowed it down to these 4, please let me know your opinions on these cameras for the type of use it will be getting.

1. Fuji F30 - DPreview seems to rate this camera above any other point and shoot for image quality. Huge ISO settings possible, 6.3mp, 3x optical zoom, image stabilization, awesome low light performance = $320
Note sure about Fuji optics, even though the sample shots on DPreview are awesome quality.

2. Canon SD700IS - DPreview is good, not as good as The F30 though. 6mp, 4x zoom, image stabilizer = $400
Canon should be a good camera, and it is, but is it worth more than the F30?

3. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1 - 10x zoom, 5mp, image stabilization = $330
Might be a bit too big for general purpose, carrying it in a purse. Awesome optical zoom ability. How are Lumix optics?

4. Nikon P4 - 8.1mp, 3.5x zoom, Image stabilizer = $360
Does she need 8.1mp for small product pictures? I have heard unwanted noise can be a sideeffect of high mp sensors in small cameras.

Any advice and opinions are appreciated.

Thanks,
Dan

[UKBob]

Sorry, I read that as onions. Ive got plenty spare you see...

[te51cle]

I've got a Fuji E550 with the previous generation of sensor and can recommend it to anyone. F30 will be less noisy, less purple fringing (easily fixed in Photoshop CS2) and have a better screen for composing and reviewing. Optics are unquestionably excellent, E550 handles macro very well - including flash management at short range - would think that F30 will be the same. Have briefly used an F10 and found it feels better than the E550 in the hand. You might want to have a look at the E900 which is an updated version of the E550.

I've briefly ued a friend's Canon A620 and found it a nice solid camera though I think I prefer the Fuji for ease of use. I found the A620 didn't handle flash in macro at all well, it over-exposed like crazy.

Lens on the Panasonic will be excellent as its a Leica but their sensor has a reputation for being noisy, you can correct that in various aftermarket software but you'd probably be better off with one of the others if you're taking pictures of jewellery.

[foryorent]

Thanks for the info!

How do you go about correcting the purple friging in software?

The F30 sounds like it is a better general purpose camera especially for low light, but sample photos of the canon look just a bit better in my opinoin. But if things can be fixed in photoshop or something like that, for the price the F30 looks awesome.

Anyone else use any of these cameras?