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[Rander]

You could also try a refurbished Olympus PEN E-PL1, its $189 and comes with a 1 year factory warranty

Olympus PEN E-PL1 Micro 4/3 Digital Camera & 14-42mm Lens

I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 and think its a great camera and many reviews of the EPL1 say performance is similar if not better.

[RSMorex]

Originally Posted by mrgetalife

If you can find a Closeout Canon ELPH 300 HS. Its a decent sleeper camera where it somehow got some higher spec parts in it. Its replacement was cheapened so it wouldn't compete with their more expensive models. The ELPH 100/110 HS probally will be OK still.

I'm not sure how they will actually perform but with your price tag they are kind of your only choices.

i am willing to raise my price tag to like 300 - 500 atleast if i can be sure of performance, quality (especially taking images of "lights at night"), and battery life problem is every camera i fing has conflicting reviews half say great half say piece of junk i don't know who to believe or what and i feel if i can't find a review i can trust my brain will explode

[RSMorex]

find*

[RSMorex]

also I've been reading "How-To"s about photography at night in vegas and need a camera with manual control i.e. shutter speed and apature settings ect

[Ashurachan]

For a $300-$500 price tag you can get some of the lower end hybrids of the previous generation, like a Sony NEX 3 or a Panasonic GF. If you want to take photos at night, you need good low light performance, and a large sensor is the best way to get it.
If you can push up to $500 you can get an entry level DSLR like the Nikon D3100.

[mrgetalife]

Pretty much what you're looking to do no matter what camera you buy you'll probably have issues trying to do it without practice.

So your choices are go small and cheap with the Canon i mentioned. Or step up a few more dollars and go with what Ashurachan just mentioned.

Most of the night shots you want to capture lights for would require a tripod or support.

[Neddog]

If you're looking in the $300-$500 range, there is no reason to buy an expensive point-and-shoot. There are many non-reflex (mirrorless) system cameras available at that price which blow the socks off of any point-and-shoot in every way, from control to build to versatility to image quality to investment value to... well, just about anything you can possibly think of - EVEN size! A small Pen Mini mounted with pancake lens is smaller than a high-end point-and-shoot like the Canon G12 or G15 (if you don't believe me you can compare online for yourself: http://camerasize.com/compare/#101,163), which doesn't even compare in ability. Of course there are smaller compacts made than that, but when you consider the huge gap in performance the tiny difference in size becomes so negligible. There is still a market for low-end point-and-shoots, but the high-end P&S market is just redundant these days.

I would go for a Micro Four-Thirds camera like the Olympus Pen Rander mentioned or the Panasonic GF that Ashurachan mentioned. The Micro Four-Thirds system is the first digital non-reflex system and is ridiculously far ahead of all the rest for variety and quality of glass and accessories (including EVF and flash system). It is an open standard, so anybody can make glass for the system. It has glass from the likes of Leica, Voigtlander, Ziess, Zuiko, Sigma, Tamron, Kenko, and more. If you're into manual glass, you can adapt almost any lens that's been made to it as well (though for this the NEX system is also just as good). It is also fully compatible with the Four-Thirds system glass, which offers some of the best top-pro glass made(ie, like the fastest zoom lenses made, with f/2 constant apertures).

[nilukshi]

Try using canon or nikon digicam. While buying one, look out for the lens, sensor, battery, flash and Optical zoom. I think if you take care of all this, you will get something good within your budget.