My Cannon powershot S1 can not take stop action shots. There's about a .5 second delay from when you push the botton and win the actual shot is taken. How can I make sure any new camera I buy will take stop action shots?

Hi Clyde,
This delay between when the button is pushed and the shot is taken is known as shutter lag and can sometimes be a problem with digital cameras. You'll want to look for a new camera with as short a shutter lag time as possible. A few good ones to look at:
-Panasonic FZ50 (high end price range but shutter lag of fractions of a second)
-Kodak Easyshare DX6440

Also, more high-end DSLRs (thousand-dollar price range and such) will have much less shutter lag than a typical point and shoot.

Another quick tip- prepare yourself to take the shot by half-depressing the shutter button before the "action shot" is ready. Half-depressing the button will frame the shot but not take the picture. Then when the action really happens, push the button down the rest of the way. This will eliminate a lot of problems with shutter lag because the delay is being caused partially by the shot framing, so get that out of the way before you actually take the picture.

Wow! Thanks Brenda. I'll try the tip of 1/2 depressing the button. Is shutter lag a specification that the manufacture denotes in the same manner as megapixels etc?

Clyde