Help me find the right digital camera please!

When you say spot focus, is that the spot AF listed for the H20? What exactly is that? Rather than pick a focal distance, do you pick a point on screen and it auto focuses to that? That might be just as good as manual focusing. The only hesitation I had with his camera is the lack of an actual manual focus, but this spot AF sounds just as good, if not better.

With concerts, I'm not looking for anything professional quality. I got some decent pictures with my current camera, a kodak C613, and that's a horrible camera. Only problem is the quality was terrible once I zoomed in past it's optical zoom of 3x.

Maybe the H20 really is the best choice here. And while we're at it, my brother wants a replacement. He likes his camera, and wants the same features, but he wants a slim pocket-sized point and shoot. He doesn't mind a slight downgrade as long as it has similar quality and features, but in a much smaller package.

Spot focus will focus on the area that is centered in the LCD screen.
Some cameras will show a small spot on the screen as a guide.

Concert:
If there is any action you are likely to get a blurred image because of the slow shutter speed needed to take a photo in low light.
You usually get better results if you use video.
The blurring is still there but you do not notice it in video mode.

Use as little zoom as possible, because the lens looses light as it is zoomed.

Your brother might find this link helpful when looking for small cameras with big zoom:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q210grouptravelzoom/

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Thank you very much for the link! I found a few sites reviewing some megazooms, but I didn't see that one, and it is the best I've read so far. Very, very informative and helpful.

As for concerts, thanks for the tips. You think videos would be a bit better if I want to zoom in? I wonder if I would have ok quality if I took video and then used a video editing program to take still shots from my video.
Any other recommendations for those types of photos? Also, Sony says the H20 has a 9 point spot focus.. in this case does it mean I can change the position of the spot focus?

Still shots from video:
If the video is standard, each frame in the video is 640 x 480, if it is HD, each frame is 1280 x 720.

640 x 480 is too small to make a decent still photo.
1280 x 720 will be OK for a screen shot, but too small for anything over 4 x 6 inch prints.

I have a camera with 9 point focus and you can select which point (or points) for spot focus.
You should look at User Manual to see for sure.

Here is a photo I took some time ago using a Konica/Minolta Z2.
Using a 2 inch toy car.
Using spot focus.
Point of focus was the dashboard.
Notice that the front and rear of the car are soft focus.
The dashboard is in the field that has the sharpest focus, which represents the DOF (depth of field).
When shooting macro, the DOF is very shallow.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v159/randol9p9/PICT0442E.jpg

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Thanks! The H20 is HD, and I don't print pictures as of now, mainly just use them on my computer to share with others. I guess the next concert I go to I'll just play around with video as well as pictures with different settings.

I like that 9 point spot focus. It really makes pictures much more interesting when you have an off center focal point. Looking forward to playing around with that.

So, I don't think I'm going to go with the H20. My brother is realizing that his camera is actually quite nice and doesn't necessarily need a new one. Plus, my mom just got a new kodak 580. we tested out the video on that, and even though it was HD quality, it had a noticeable lag to it, which his H20 doesn't have.

So now I'm completely confused by the different choices out there. I want at least 10mp. It would be nice to be able to print something out at 9x11 or so (whatever can fit in a normal photo printer. I also want at least 10 times zoom. I'd like a multiple point spot focus, or some ability to take photos with off center focus. I want good HD video with no lag and the ability to zoom in during recording. And lastly, I think, I want it to be decent in low or artificial lighting. A lot of my pictures are done in doors.

I know those are a lot of criteria, but I'd imagine most of these cameras have these features. My max price is still $200, and I'll be looking for craigslist or Ebay on the used market.

Thanks!