Last edited Sun Jan 27, 2013, 09:48 PM - Edit history (1)
The most optical zoom you can afford, and if you don't want to get stuck with a dead battery, find one that takes regular AA cells. Even for cameras that have good rechargeable, they wear out eventually and can leave you disappointed someday when a Yeti runs out of the woods, and you're looking at a dead battery message (LOL).
Personally, I like the Olympus auto focus SLR point & shoot. I've had a couple and even gave some used ones as gifts recently. They offer great color, a lot of bells & whistles if you want to use them, and they have mega-zoom (20X+). I've never heard anyone complain that they can zoom in too far.
If this isn't too much money, the one I use is great:
http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-SP-570UZ-Digital-Optical-Stabilized/dp/B0011E67VA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359333666&sr=8-1&keywords=olympus+570uz
Otherwise, there are less expensive models, but optical zoom is a contributing factor for price in any camera.
Here's a 21X zoom for less than $120,and it uses 4 regular-buy-at-the-gift shop AA batteries. It doesn't have a viewfinder, you use the large screen on the back (a battery killer). There are models in between those two:
http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-SP-620UZ-Digital-Optical-Black/dp/B006ZAHN18/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1359335233&sr=1-3&keywords=olympus+uz
That Olympus did all the work on this image. I just set it to auto, pointed it and clicked:
This is 20X zoom:
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