Canon, Panasonic, or?
 

Desperately needing a new camera for my upcoming trip (this weekend!). I've been debating over the Panasonic's and Canon's....specifically the s95 and LX5. According to this website (Canon S95 vs Panasonic DMC-LX5) Canon wins? Any thoughts?

Can someone please recommend me a good camera....I'm not looking for anything over $500....something that is compact please! I want to be carrying it around with me everywhere and the DSLR aren't my interest because it's too bulky when i travel.

Looking for...

*Good in low lights (I want to be able to take night time pictures, because my current 2 year Canon one can't do that!)
*Great picture quality
*Macro mode....(i love focusing on a single object and having the background blurred out and still have that amazing picture quality)

those are my two main focus....TIA!

either one has almost indistinguishable image quality in comparison with each other. Some say the S95 performs slightly better in low light, and the LX5 can focus closer in terms of macro work, and it also has a hotshoe.

i always it a point that if you are going to put it in a case, size doesn't really matter because it's not going to fit in your pocket anyways. while the LX5 is larger, i do find it easier to hold. i added a hand/finger grip to my s95 to make it easier to handle.

If you're after image quality, the LX5 wins. My image quality obsessive co-worker ditched his S95 for a LX5. The S95 has horrendous distortion if you look at the RAW files. The camera automatically corrects for the distortion in the JPEGs, but you lose part of the image. The LX5 has distortion too, but not as pronounced.

Canon S95 uncorrected RAW:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...078-Edit-2.jpg

Image corrected for distortion in Lightroom:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2..._0078-Edit.jpg