<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  You&amp;#039;d think that every time I hear from a studio head, A-list actor, or big-time producer, I&amp;#039;d get pretty excited. But I know why they&amp;#039;re calling: They all have a wife, boyfriend, or kid with a birthday, and they want my advice on the latest in digital cameras. For instance, I recently spent a couple of days in West Palm Beach, Florida, watching polo matches and chatting about Men in Black 3 with Tommy Lee Jones. I also spent time advising Dawn, his incredibly lovely wife, on the right camera to bring to South Africa. In order to save everyone&amp;#039;s time (and limit my false hope), here are four great new cameras, each with a specific strength. Although many of the new point-and-shoots use touch-screen controls, I like buttons and dials, not menus, so my recommendations are all touch-screen free. Canon Powershot SD1400  Dawn wanted something to complement her powerful Canon DSLR something she could slip in her pocketbook, so she would always have a camera with her. I suggested the incredibly small and simple 14.1-megapixel Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS ($250; usa.canon.com). I even had one in the front pocket of my Etro jacket (we are talking Palm Beach polo matches) set to black and white. It has a somewhat limited 4x zoom, but the snaps are sharp and fun, and at 1,600 ISO, you can shoot in near darkness.  Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7  I also really like the 12.1-meg Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 ($400; panasonic.com/lumix). It is a really versatile, relatively small camera with a 12x zoom (from 25 to 300mm in 35mm equivalent) that demonstrates why Lumix continues to be my favorite brand. The Leica lens and software work to produce nearly three-dimensional images: sharp, contrasty, and almost superreal. It&amp;#039;s not as slim as the Canon, but it still fits in a shirt pocket. If you own only one camera, this should be it. At least that&amp;#039;s what I told Larry Kasdan, the soon-to-be grandfather, who asked to get together for dinner. (Knowing the real reason for the meal, I brought three cameras with me.) Nikon Coolpix P100  When Kathy Kennedy, Steven Spielberg&amp;#039;s producer, was looking for a top-notch DSLR to take location scouting in England, I tried to convince her to buy the Nikon Coolpix P100 ($400; nikonusa.com) instead of lugging around a bulky DSLR. One of the Nikon&amp;#039;s best features is its 26x optical zoom (from 26 to 678mm in 35mm equivalent), which means you can shoot landscapes and superclose-ups of eagles. It also has two viewfinders: the normal LCD and an additional small LCD view cup that lets you hold the camera up to your eye to compose, which would be great on those occasional sunny days Kathy might have in England. After a long discussion, she went with the DSLR. Turns out she just wanted me to confirm her choice, as any brilliant producer would. Sony a850  If you really want that DSLR and don&amp;#039;t mind lugging it around, I enjoyed shooting location photos in Florida for MIB3 with the Sony a850 ($2,000; sonystyle.com). This is a big, heavy, full-chip digital single-lens reflex. You heft the camera up to your face, look through an optical (not digital) viewfinder, compose, and shoot beautiful, huge, 24.6-megapixel photos. The Sony uses brutally sharp zoom lenses, like the Zeiss F2.8 24-70 and F2.8 70-200. Even at an ISO of 6,400, the images of me smoking a cigar, illuminated only by Florida&amp;#039;s full moon, are pretty great. If there is a downside to the Sony (other than the fact that it didn&amp;#039;t do anything for my fat face), it&amp;#039;s that it doesn&amp;#039;t shoot video and weighs so much that I started to leave it in the hotel room and take the Canon or Lumix instead. Barry Sonnenfeld is an Emmy-winning television director and the director of Get Shorty and Men in Black. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/cars/a7445/best-new-digital-cameras-0610/>