Pictures

[Guest]

I work in the photographic industry, my advice buy a Canon ixus, there is one with a 4x zoom and image stabiliser,

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/spec...on_sd700is.asp
If this is a bit expensive go for a lower pixel 3x zoom ixus

The canons give way better colour and image quality than any of the other compacts and they also are very easy to use.
Also they use SD memorey cards, cheap and small, you would be able to hide the card almost anywhere.
As for using it, buy and use it before you go,that way you can get used to it.
All the canons have a multizone intelligent AF that takes the whole image into account and will focus on the the most predominant thing in the frame, so it it very hard to get an out of focus image.
I do not wish to start a debate, but the ixus range is by far the best, We have tried them all and Canon allways comes out on top for compacts.
If you want a DSLR then Nikon would be the way to go, but it's not what you are looking for.

[Snick]

My recomendation is the Sony T30 - the anti-shake feature really does make a difference. Also works very well in bad lighting (i.e. inside a gogo), and takes good movies.

Only downside is it uses Sony Memorystick and not the more common Secure Digital (SD) Format

( but the Canon xxx mentioned does look good too, they did not have a model with image stabilization last time I was looking. Guess it depends on if you have any other Sony products like a PSP or Sony-Ericsson phone )

Extra memory is readily available in HK and Thailand if you need to buy more, I suggest getting 2 cards to start off with, one for 'clean' pictures and one for the other stuff. Also if you plan on taking video (which is fun) you should factor in that that uses a lot of space.

[dummy_plug]

I use a Sony Cybershot (forgot the model) and its been a great camera for all occasions and you can usually find the older models at a slight discount on sites like Amazon.com and the like. I noticed you didn't include it in your list of cameras, but maybe its an alternative you should consider.