what should i look for megapixel wise? above 6.0 megapixels you probably won't notice much of a difference in resolution until you zoom in a few times. 6.0 and above print excellent at professional printers by the way.
That said, many of the newer cameras have better light capturing features and better focusing features, etc And they are mostly higher resolution cameras. so it's a bit of a trade off.....
whatever you do, make sure you get one with a rechargeable lithium ion battery. not one that takes AA batteries. you'll go through a butt load of AA battery's if you go down that path.
I have a 7.2 megapixel sony Cybershot DSCW55 7.2MP. works fantastic...
here it is in black for $175. (you still need a memory card fyi)... for $211 you get the camera and a 2 gig memory card. should hold about 2000 pics..... not sure if $200 bucks is a butt load of money to you but that's about the going price for a decent camera with a rechargable battery and memory....
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Cybershot-DSC...
i read the latest answers and here's a refurbished fuji camera without a memory card.
http://www.refurbdepot.com/productdetail...
it can use a 1 gig card which goes for about $50. so you can have the camera and a 1 gig card for about $160 + shipping. Get the Fuji F 20. 6.1 megapixels for less than $150. it depends on how big the BUTT is. Borrowing someone else's... Don't look at extra pixels, it's more than anought to have 8MP. It's much important to look for a large sensor size. For example: Canon A630 with 1/1.8 " (7.18 x 5.32 mm) sensor for $220. Sam beat me to it . My first choice for you would have been the Canon A630. In my opinion equal quality would be the Fuji E900.
In the $130 to $160 range look at Canon A460 and Canon A550.
PS...I still don't know how much a butt load of money is. Fuji makes their own optics. Nikon contracts theirs, but have arguably some of the best lenses on the market. Canon also makes their own lenses. Fuji and Canon are the two top lens makers in the film and TV worlds.
I've got Fuji digitals, and I have Nikon. Both have very fine image sensors, with the Nikon having an expected cleaner image due to a lower noise floor than our two point and shoot Fuji's.
Pixel wise, it depends on the outcome of your work. If you do high end photography, you will want a higher pixel count, up to a point. Magazine photogs regularly use 10 and 12 megapixel cameras for the ability to publish and crop pictures. Higher pixel densities also decrease the amount of light each pixel gets, so the lens has to be open wider, or the exposure longer to get the same brightness to the sensor.
Our two Fujis have 8megapixel image chips, and my Nikon has a 6megapixel chip. The Nikon holds up better to enlargement, basically because the lens is magnitudes better than either Fuji. The two Fuji's yield a picture that can be cropped, such as you can do with Picasa and give you a decent portrait or landscape, allow you to straighten shots that are crooked, and color enhance image grabs that you want to play with or make look as good as the original.
Go for a camera that has between 6 and 8 megapixel and you should be satisfied.
For under $150 you can get a decent point and shoot digital. Don't pay a whole lot of attention to the zoom power of the lens on those cheaper cameras, because a 10x zoom is not going to yield a crisp picture at full zoom in point. It simply does not have the number of elements, chromatic or luminance correction you need to get on image, what you can see with your eyes.
If you are shooting family, vacation, or casual pictures, most any brand will yield an adequate image for small prints, for web posting, etc. I agree with Dark Swinger. I have the Fujifilm Finepix F10 and I like it. You can get it for $120 if you shop around. It's only cheap because it came out years ago, not because it's obsolete. | 