@Tim Lathouwers While I do like a viewfinder, an optical viewfinder is pretty much out of the question on these modern P&S cameras. Take my Panasonic TZ5, now a few years old... that's delivering a 10x zoom. You never had 10x zooms back in the rangefinder days.. they make sense on SLRs and camcorders -- gotta see through the lens.
And while the viewfinder's a fair must-have for me on a "serious" camera or camcorder, I have this TZ5 in my pocket, for those times a camcorder or full SLR rig is not practical. Compromise is an inherent property of this sort of camera.. even if it's your only one, you're looking to maximize the functionality of that one camera while minimizing cost and size. You have to go larger just to find room for an electronic viewfinder.
As well, I think the days of "viewfinder-only" cameras are long gone. Back in the 70s and 80s, you expected only viewfinder, maybe with an optional "sportsfinder" available on a high-end Canon or Nikon. Having added camcorders to my vast array of cameras back in the early 90s, I learned the value of the external screen, too. Some folks, growing up on this, never even miss the viewfinder. I do wish they'd consider the option of transflective LCDs or some other tech for daylight visibility (with a camcorder, it's pretty easy to add a hood if you need it, but not too practical on a tiny P&S).
Lag time has been improving steadily on these. I used to shoot film with an EOS RT... one of the fastest cameras ever, with a shutter lag of 0.008sec. My first serious digital was a Canon Pro90IS.... you really had to learn the rhythm of it, because the shutter lag was nuts. Typical SLRs run around 0.100sec-0.140sec... so 0.200 in a P&S is not horrible.
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