Hi:
I use digital cameras every day, and my wife is a professional photographer. This is my advice. Get a Sony DSC-P200, or a DSC-P150 or any in that range. Ive taken mine as high as 18,000 ft with no problems. My buddy took his up Everest twice. You cant go wrong with these Sonys. Buy a 1 Gb memory stick so you have lots of room. Then, buy Photoshop Elements to edit your photos. When you are at that point, I can give you great advice on workflow, and how to make great pictures. I also can give you good links to follow on where to learn some more. You will need a good photo quality printer from Hp or Epson, and the corresponding photo paper. One of the most important things to remember is to get a camera of at least 4 megapixels if you plan to print slightly larger than 5x7. My DSC-P150 shoots at 7.2 Megapixel, and at that resolution a letter sized photo is simply incredible. Ask me any other doubt you may have. See my pictures at websitemigs.com
I have been using the Pentax 43WR for about a year and I love it. It is water resistent and actually waterproof as long as you do not try to take pictures under water.
If you are brand new to digital cameras, there are two things that you need to know above anything else:
Digital cameras have a significant time delay between when you press the button and the picture is actually recorded. You need to remember this when you take a picture. After you press the button, hold the camera steady until the picture is actually taken. Action shots are extremely difficult or impossible.
Digital cameras eat batteries for breakfast. You must get yourself two sets of rechargeable batteries and a charger. The Pentax 43WR uses AA size batteries, which is nice.
I use a sony cybershot 3 megapixels. I love the camera, but also a little nervous when I take it to the water. I always keep it in a waterproof bag, which of course makes it harder to get at.
I’m thinking about getting a less expensive model just for fishing/hunting. 1 or 2 megapixel would do the job for most shots of fish up close. Something I wouldn’t freak out over getting wet…
What will you use the pictures for?
If you plan to use the images mainly for email and web postings a smaller mega- pixel camera should suffice. However, if you plan on printing your photos a 3Mgp camera should do the trick. Remember, to avoid pixilation in your pictures a larger print size requires a larger Mgp camera.
Where will you use the camera?
If your main purpose is on stream, get a smaller camera that will easily slip into a vest pocket. Remember the smaller the camera the harder it is to handle in varying conditions. Also, the smaller the camera the closer the flash is to the lens increasing the possibility of red eye.
Skill level?
Point and shoot or some manual settings.
Size does matter.
The last time that I checked compact flash cards were the cheapest per Mb and had the largest holding capacity (4 GB?) However, they are bigger than most other memory types therefore the cameras they go into are a bit more bulky.
Batteries.
Rechargables or disposables? Regardless it probably is not a bad idea to buy a card reader for your computer. Just pull your memory card out of the camera and plug it into the memory card reader, no juice pulled from your cameras batteries
We use our bride’s camera and usually someone at the bash has to set it up for us…especially pics of SMALL stuff!