What's a good digital camera to get?

[Mister Phes]

UPDATE

I think I might go for a digtial SLR camera, so I've been looking at the Pentax K100D and Olympus EVOLT E-500.

I've been searching for a new digital camera and so far the Sony DSC H5 and Panasonic Lumix LZ27

My main concern with the Sony is many reviewers have reported that they've experience purple fringing in their images. So that means areas of the picture will have a magenta haze in them, but apparently this is common in cameras of this class.

My main concern with the Panasonic is the image quality is very poor on the higher shutter speeds and low lighting, more so than other camera.

Basically, what I'm looking for is a camera with outstanding image quality. I.e. crisp clear images, vibrant images, good constrast, etc. I don't really need 10MP as 6MP-7MP will do just fine.

Are there any other cameras I should be investigating?

[Scouty]

I have a camera that works really well with me and gives me really clean images. The camera is from Nikon,I think it's called the Coolpix L3. It's a 5.1 megapixel camera with x3 zoom. Not sure if this is a up or downside, but uses AA batteries, I think it's a good up since you can change batteries when they die, instead of buying an extra bat. pack. :-)

[Brick Miner]

i have/use a Canon PowerShot A520 for all the digital photos you see come out of me... i wouldn't recommend it ;-)

- BrickMiner

[Starwars4J]

I use a Canon Powershot S80

8.0 MegaPixels, and great controls and functions. I'd recommend it

[Mister Phes]

UPDATE

I think I might go for a digtial SLR camera, so I've been looking at the Pentax K100D and Olympus EVOLT E-500.

[Starwars4J]

SLRs are great, but bulky (due to it's nature) and expensive

What will you be using this for, aside of Lego? I'm taking a course in photography, so I'd probably be able to help

[Mister Phes]

Yes, I'm aware of the nature of SLRs as I've actually gone to some stores and handled them for myself.

Initially it will be LEGO but gradually I intend to branch out and use it for a variety of purposes ranging from experimenting to perhaps using it for work.

The reason I've looked into SLR cameras is I want the highest image quality possible (and I'm quite anal retentive about that) so I don't want to encounter the problems like noise in low lighting and higher ISOs, or haloing or purple hazing.

Obviously the SLR cameras have bigger lenses and bigger sensors which are two main contributing factors for producing a high quality image.