[Tannin]

I have a pair of Canon 20Ds, typically I have a 500 f/4 lens on one for birds, and swap between various lenses on the other for landscape, macro, and general work, anything from EFS-10-22 up to a 100-400.

There are times when the weight and clumsiness of all that gear is just too much, and I want to only carry the 20D & 500 f/4 for birds, but still be able to grab the odd landscape or wildflower along the way. Plus there are times when the second DSLR isn't really avaliable as (for example) when I've got the 100-400 mounted ready for flight shots but want a quick general record of the location (i.e., wide to normal range) and swapping lenses isn't an option (sand, dust, rain, or just needing to keep the 100-400 ready at a moment's notice).

Eventually, I'll get a 3rd body (probably whatever replaces the 1D II & 1Ds II), but that's a while away, and the complete set will be way too heavy for walking any distance with.

Seems like the answer is to buy a little point and shoot camera to drop into a pocket. Wouldn't cost too much.

Priorities:

* Macro capability for bugs and wildflowers.
* Wider the better. (Don't care too much about the long end.)
* Fast shutter response (I hate the press - wait - click thing that P&S cams inflict on you)
* Fast start-up from sleep state. (If you have to wait for it to mess about zooming itself back out again and getting organised, that's painful.)
* Prefer proper CF, not those SD things (I know, I know, everything is SD these days, so I'll have to go that way - and if it isn't either CF or SD, I'm not even considering it. Well, XD if really pressed, but I absolutely won't go the Sony propietary route.)
* 10MP in a sensor that small is stupid - just a waste of storage space of pixels that physically cannot contain more detail. Something around 5MP to at most 8 seems sensible.
* Clean higher ISOs? Not too fussed as I have the SLRs, but could be a bonus I guess. Good dynamic range would be nice. (This is something that little digicams seem to do better than my SLRs, by the way.)
* Image quality that isn't going to make me wind up never using it because the 20Ds are so much beter. Sure, I won't match the SLRs, but it would be nice to see something in the same ballpark.
* Waterproof? A bonus, not essential.
* Fully swivelling screen. Gone out of fashion these days it seems, but the A95 style any angle screen was great.
* AA batteries would save me having yet another charger, it can share with my GPS and a few other things.

My old Canon A95 would have been just about perfect, except that the macro ability wasn't great and it broke and Canon didn't repair it, they replaced it with an A610 which I sold. Ergonomics wise, the even older Nikon Coolpix 4500s were great: that swivel body was excellent.

I'm not too fussed about the cost, but it doesn't seem rational to spend too much, given that it's a 3rd camera and might not get too much use.