My wife is wanting a new Camera for family pictures. We have a Nikon 80 but it's heavy so it tends to get left behind. She is looking for a newer lighter camera that won't break the bank. We would like to use it while hiking and also for action shots while they're playing sports. Examples of most pictures taken are close up plants, animals and family. Thanks for your advice.

You have to establish a budget to determine which camera is "best" for you. Take a look at what Ken Rockwell says here.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/recommended-cameras.htm

Look at the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-RX100 Mark IV.

Whatever you think you like best, checkout DPreview on that model.

The point and shoot cameras, even the expen$ive ones all have a shutter lag. I have a friend, who bought one, and he says it is very good to put in his pocket, good for things that don't move. Racing cars, sports, kids, etc, not so much.

Yes. Maybe someone in the business can address the current lock time situation, but a half to one second delay on the shutter with point N shoot units resulted in a lot of missed shots. Even with $500 CoolPics. Could be the issue's been rectified, but we don't give them a look anymore.

The better cameras put into a sports mode will capture 8 to 10 well focused images in the time it takes one to clear a hurdle or serve a tennis ball. Also, not much wrong with a heavier camera unless one is literally a snowflake. A lot more stability with a little heft in the hand.

With point and shoot units, it might be only 1 out 20 attempts that Cookie could make a capture like these. In most instances the hawk would be gone or the buck already on the ground with their persistent delays.

While its arguable whether the Sony RX100 mark IV fits into the OP's "won't break the bank" criteria, it most certainly meets it for speed. The "shutter lag" of the RX beats every Canon DSLR measured every which way according to the bench testing done here;
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/canon-7d-mark-ii/canon-7d-mark-iiA6.HTM
and here;
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/sony-rx100-iv/sony-rx100-ivA6.HTM
...and if you check out the Panasonic offerings, you'll see that the Sony RX is not alone for speed.
I have an RX-100 mark IV, and a later generation Canon DSLR (7D mark II), and I can tell you that the RX is the real deal for getting 'em off quick.

Thanks for those links. They are informative showing lags of 0.1 to 0.2 seconds. A lot can happen in that amount of time. Give a basketball player 4 seconds, and he can travel the full length of court.



There's a lot less analysis going on with single point focus, so I'd expect it to be quicker than multipoint.

That 70D steps right out there like 3 times as fast. Word of mouth reports from some of Cookie's friends are they're very impressed with the newer pro-grade Nikons. Not seen any hard independent data, but their frames per second rate is really getting up there.

I think you guys need to re-read the original post about what this guy's needs and budget are. A $900 point and shoot or a fast DSLR or bridge camera really don't sound like what's needed for plants, animals and family pictures.....

No one has insisted on a specific. The efforts seem more directed as describing potential pitfalls or benefits.

The most expensive camera in the long run is probably a $100 a month cell phone plan.

My wife wanted a lightweight camera with interchangeable lenses, so I ended buying mirrorless Olympus OMD E-M5 Mark II while Olympus had a $200.00 discount for it with a kit lens ($100 discount for the lens, too. Anyway, mirrorless cameras use a lot of battery power, so I bought an extra battery.

Now don't believe for a moment that a mirrorless camera is not as good as the usual DSLR camera. Some are very expensive, too. For example Sony has a couple of them and one costs around $4,000.

I have an EM-5 Mark I and love it. It fill a niche for me.

I had some additional thoughts about a budget camera with minimal lag, but it appears that our OP has left us hanging. I hate when folks do that, so I'm done here.

cool............I'm currently looking for a camera upgrade too...........

thx for the Rockwell link...........

'1minute'

awesome pics above !!