I've owned an Optura Pi and a Sony TRV50. Preferred the Optura Pi picture. Have been looking at low-end Canons lately (ZR60) and like the degree of manual control even their low-end models have. The ZR60 (and 70) have a cool feature that allows you to adjust auto-exposure up or down from normal giving you a finer degree of control in certain conditions. Also, even the low-end Canons allow manual white-balance, manual shutter speed, manual focus and manual exposure. I was really disappointed after I bought the TRV50 to discover you couldn't set white-balance very easily and no manual shutter-speed.

The only complaint I've had with Canons is that it seemed that in the past they had transport problems that resulted in my Optura being in the shop twice in 2 years. Every time I brought it in invariably someone else was there with a similar problem with a different model Canon. Other than that I really like Canons.

One other thing. You might want to decide whether you really want to spend the extra for the 70MC over the basic 60 and invest in a real digital camera instead. With my TRV50 I did find the built in still function useful at times, but it's hard to get quality pictures with a megapixel or 1.3 megapixels of information.