Which camera, HELP!

[Lindy]

I'm looking for a new camera for my husbands birthday. I looked at the DSLRs that everyone on here seems to use but they are far too big for our requirements. My husband needs something that is completely automatic, he has no interest in fiddling with things. The camera would be used for hill climbing trips where he walks for around 8hrs a day for 3-4 days so a massive/heavy camera is out of the question and also for holidays and family occasions. Previous grips with cameras have been that when we've gone to enlarge our favorite pics all quality is lost.
I've been looking at cameras on line but there is so much choice!
I liked the look of the Nikon Coolpix; p520 and L820
Lumix DMC FZ62 and DMC TZ40
Canon powershot SX500
Or variations of the above. Ease of use is a must and picture quality. I can go 2-300 pounds.
His (very)old camera is an olympus with 4mp and he loved it apart from not being able to enlarge pictures much.
Help would be much appreciated even just to narrow the field as I'm getting eyeball ache from staring at my laptop.

Cheers

 

[Edvet]

That's a "wide" question you ask (basically the same as: which car should i buy...) I guess you need to do some research to learn a bit more.
Basically i find DPreview a good place to start to see what the pro's and con's of any camera are. Just google that. The problem with advising on a camera is always knowing what you think is important.
On the other hand most new compact cameras are reasonably good. Just make a list of what you guys want from a camera ( do family shots, do landscapes do closeups of fish or do shots from far away(like wildlife)) and have that in mind selecting one.(do you need video?, do you want to learn and get to bigger/better cameras)
Don't let the megapixelcount fool you, bigger isn't always better. I like the coolpixes, but i am a nikon fan. Not many realy bad cameras around nowadays from the large wellknown photo brands. Local availability may come into play also. Maybe think about a smartphone. They take very decent pictures nowadays too. TZ40 gets good reviews too and it's newer then the FZ62, in general newer is better.Look here too:

DPReview Recommends: Best Compact Cameras for Travel: Digital Photography Review

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