On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 16:22:54 CST, James Bassuk
wrote:

it needs to take great pics, be quick to boot, and be small enough to fit
into a ski jacket pocket.

James,

You're definitely limiting yourself by requiring that the camera fit
in the pocket of your ski jacket, unless you have really BIG pockets.

Therefore, you can pretty much rule out a full-size digital SLR. That
alone should save you a few bucks....however, don't expect anything
close to pro quality (powder mag) pics with a pocket-sized point and
shoot. With a pocket-sized point and shoot, you'll have to accept
just plain old "good pics" with the occasional you-got-lucky "great
pic" thrown in from time to time.

In the world of digital cameras, you get what you pay for, generally
speaking. The more you pay, the bigger the cameras and lenses
become...resulting in a higher potential for "great pics". That's
just a fact of photography life.

Notice, above, that I used the word "potential". That's because some
people just can't take a decent photo, even with $10,000 of high-end
hardware hanging from their neck. In the world of alpine skiing
photography, we call this type of equipment possessed photographer a
"Texan". They are usually at the Rich Amateur (Level 2), or the
Equipment Measurbator (Bottom Level 1) of the 7 levels of
photographers:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/7.htm

Ooops, sorry to get off track there.

Anyway, you didn't mention it, but for skiing, you definitely want a
camera that can shoot 2 to 3 frames per second (fps), or better, in
the continuous mode. Otherwise, you'll end up missing out on the good
ski action sequence shots.

Anyway, if you are looking for a full-size digital SLR, I can
definitely point you in the right direction.

However, there are a zillion digital point and shoot pocket cameras
out there, therefore, as a starting point, I suggest that you dig
around he

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/

-Astro

---
maximum exposure f/2.8
http://www.xmission.com/~hound/astro/03-04/index.htm
---