Tore Lund wrote:
> Exactly, and some confuse manual controls with quality - reviewers in
> particular.

Tore:

I could not agree with you any more.  Manual controls do not equal quality,
and reviewers in particular confuse the two.  If you have followed some of
my earlier threads about my bad experience with a defective A series Canon,
you will know what I think about the current sad state of quality control in
the Canon A60/70 cameras.  While the A60/70 has lots of great features (Av,
Tv, Manual and such), Canon has a serious problem with quality control in
the production of these cameras with more reports of defective ones in
various internet forums than any other camera. When one starts hearing about
misaligned viewfinders, tilted CCD's, lines across LCDs, stuck or crooked
lenses, stuck pixels, one starts to wonder about how a company with Canon's
reputation can let this problem continue to happen.

Then there is the Canon A series soft image problem which translates into
loss of detail that may never be recovered with sharpening.

I replaced my defective A series Canon with an Nikon Coolpix 3100 and I am
very pleased with both the decision to do so and the resulting pics of the
CP3100.

While is does not have all of the features (and manual controls confused
with quality), the resulting pics are quite good.  They do not suffer from
the soft image problem of the A series Canons, and after over a 1000 pics, I
have found that the dynamic ISO has never gone over 150, resulting in very
little noise compared to what the the reviewers had to say.  The "scene
modes" may not have the control of Av, Tv, and Manual, but they cover most
of the my needs.  The "portrait mode", opens up the f/stop to reduce the
depth of field (DOF) and the "landscape mode" shuts down the f/stop to
increase the DOF.  The "sports mode" increases the shutter speed while the
"museum mode" decreases the shutter speed.  In an experiment, I found that
the "museum mode" was good for shooting waterfalls.

For an experienced photographer, one has to learn how to think outside the
traditional photography box of  f/stops and shutter speeds.  For a beginner
the "scene modes" are a great help.

To answer your comment, about which is better for landscape shots, I have
found the CP3100 to be far superior to my former A series Canon.  With the
short focal length lenses of digicams, DOF is rarely an issue so Av or
Manual modes are not that important.  The Ev can easily be used for any
required exposure adjustments for difficult shots.  The soft image problem
of the A series Canons blurs detail that may never be recovered.  The
sharper pics of the CP3100, maintain this detail.  Finally, I have never
found the CP3100's dynamic ISO to go too high as to result in noisy pics.
The Best Shot Selector on the CP3100 is a very useful feature for low-light
condtions too.

Steve.