Digital Camera Recommendation - Best For Action Shots

It looks like I fried my 2 year old Nikon CoolPix 885. While traveling out of the country, I plugged the camera battery charger into a euro-style outlet, with a US-to-Euro adapter. This same electrical adapter I had been using with my laptop AC power adapter without any problems, and the digital camera battery charger appeared to be charging and working fine. Well, after several minutes, I checked on the battery status, and the charger/battery was completely dead. No lights, no charge, nothing.

Determined to charge the battery so I could take more pictures on the trip, I put the battery back in the digital camera, and noticed a small AC input socket on the side of the camera. My thinking was that I'd put the battery back in the camera, plug in an AC power adapter into the side of the camera, and it'd charge the battery. Problem was that I did not have the AC power adapter that came with the camera, so I improvised. This was my mistake. I took a look at the laptop AC power adapter that I had been using successfully on the trip, and it fit perfectly into the DC socket on the side of the camera. So I plugged it in, again, using a US-style pronged plug with a euro-adapter/connector into the wall outlet. The camera powered on, and I was able to browse the pictures on the camera. Cool, I thought.... I'll be able to charge the camera battery this way. Several minutes later I checked up on the camera/battery, and it was completely dead. I unplugged the AC power adapter, and just tried to get power from the battery since it still had a small charge left. Nothing, zilcho, dead.

Getting back to the States, I again tried to plug in the battery charger, and even used a spare battery in the camera. Both are dead, and I think fried.

Since this camera cost $500 new (2 years ago), new today is around $250, and will cost at least $200 to fix (if even possible), I'm looking for a replacement point-and-shoot digital camera that offers better quality action shots than the CoolPix 885 did. Now maybe with some of the manual settings available on the 885 I could have taken decent action shots, but I am an F-Stop dummy. I'm looking for a reasonably priced digital camera that will take awesome action shots with just a few simple setting changes. Compact size is also important, since I'd like to take the camera along on trail rides.

Since this just happened, and I'm looking to buy a new camera before a trip this weekend, I don't have the time to do my normal research. Any recommendations in the $500 price range would be appreciated.

Thanks!

:cool:

Here's a classic out-of-focus action shot taken with the Nikon CoolPix 885:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/40345348/40366912nwxvjF

This was the first weekend I had this camera, so keep in mind that I was a point-and-click fool. I eventually did get better at them by panning the camera along with the action subject, like this:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/156401866/156405618HlAeZH

Slow-moving targets and having the action subject moving towards you definitely helps with the focus. You really have to be "lucky" with the timing though when panning a subject moving across the lens, considering the shutter lag time from the time you click and when the shot is actually taken.

I just want a compact digital that allows me to point-and-click great action shots.

Lou,

I don't know the answer to your question, but I do know that jonnyt took some flat, washed out photos I had posted from Red Bud '03, and tweaked the colors using Photoshop. The results were so amazing that I had a hard time believing that the photos came from my camera. The difference was night and day.

Check out this thread: http://www.dirtrider.net/forums3/showthread.php?t=81384

Unfortunately the Photoshop'd versions of my photos that jonnyt did are no longer online. He also had a bunch of photos posted that he took at Red Bud and Photoshop'd them as well. Aside from the deep, vivid colors, the specks and clumps of roost were so clear, they appeared to be frozen in mid-air.