Stick with a Sony and you don't need more than 2.1 megapixals.

Make sure it takes short 15 second movies and spend some money on a 32 or 64 K memory stick. - AKA Film.

I love my Sony Mavica MVC CD300!
Takes great photos and writes it straight to a cdrw! I can pop the CD into any CDrom drive or hookup via a USB cable. It takes 3.3 megapixel pics and up to 1 minute worth of mpeg. Depending on how you set the camera up the cd can hold up to 90 minutes worth of mpegs or anywhere from 27 super high quality photos all the way up to 1100 pics!!! My only complaint is the zoom sorta sucks but all in all its a great toy! And i couldnt pass up the deal i got at the time! It was one of those "fell off the truck" things!

You want small then the Olympus D-40 is the way to go. On the larger size the Olympus 4040 or the Cannon G2. If you want to spend a lot of cash then get a digital SLR. Since getting a digital camera I sold my Nikon N-70 and haven't shot a single frame my my Mamiya medium format. I also really like the services like Ofoto or snapfish.

I have a Minolta Dimage 7 and must say it has more buttons and gadgets im still reading up on, it takes great pics. it uses a smart card, i have a 256mb card which depending on the resolution i use
can hold up to 500 pics, 5.2 mega pixels, i print pics on regular paper that are better than some ive seen on photo paper. thier are plenty of cameras on the market, if you want to stay ahead of the power curve so your camera is not obsolete by weeks end spend a little more now. i spent 1 k on mine, happy shopping.

I have a Fuji 2800. Takes prettygood pics. $400 I think a very important feature to look for is optical zoom. Mine has 6x. I find that a lot of times you are taking pictures of things relatively far away.

I have to throw my $.02 for the Mavica. There are versions that use a floppy that you can stick into any computer without software or cables. Foolproof and (so far) idiotproof.

my advice is MINOLTA.
strong machine,never had problems ,
I keep it in the boat salt+vibration doesnt mean too much to this machine.

click here for minolta page


hope this helps

Here is a 14 Megapixel Camera

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0209/02...odakdcs14n.asp

Shane, the boat has been running perfect all summer, I can't believe it , I will take the lowers apart this winter to reseal and check everything out, hope all is well!

Thank you one & All!.... I really appreciate all the input.... Formula31.... I like "foolproof and idiotproof" ..... good sales line.... .... I've learned ore here in 5 minutes of reading your responses then I did in an hour listening to "Jimmy Olson" at the phot store last night.... man that guy talked WAY over my head... I really did feel inept when I left.... he laughed when I told him I still had a Canon SureShot!