photographing birds in the hand

[TonyS]

I am looking still to buy a camera which will enable me to photograph birds in the hand or moths from my moth trap. I want to see good feather detail of course and presumably a good macro feature for the lepidoptera. I'm not sure I can afford DSLR and wondered can I get the same detail from a point and press for under £300? Canon A95 was a thought but I think I've missed the boat there.
Anybody got any experience to offer on this one. Would appreciate comments.
TonyS

[john-henry]

I am looking still to buy a camera which will enable me to photograph birds in the hand or moths from my moth trap. I want to see good feather detail of course and presumably a good macro feature for the lepidoptera. I'm not sure I can afford DSLR and wondered can I get the same detail from a point and press for under £300? Canon A95 was a thought but I think I've missed the boat there.
Anybody got any experience to offer on this one. Would appreciate comments.
TonyS

Tony, the A95 would be a good choice pricewise and qualitywise, and are still available at pixmania.com for under £200. If you want something better have a look at the Canon S2, 12x zoom, good macro and image stabilised for just over £300, the image stabilising is a real benefit as it sounds as if most of your shots will be handheld.
No doubt there are also many other compacts that would do the job but I have no experience of them.

Good luck

john