What is the best and most affordable digital camera available today?

What is the best brand? I am planning to buy one. I am not good in photograpy but I am planning to make it a hobby. Please help me out. I live near Davao City. Where can I go for the best buy here?

Affordable by who's income ? The Fuji S series has alot to offer and I think it's had to beat all of those features, S6000, S8000 or S9000. You can check them out at www.fujifilm.com or www.bhphotovideo.com, at B&H Photo you can check the reviews (some demos) and great prices. I have been a customer for over 25 years, they have a Professional staff to answer your questions.

My Wife own a Fuji S5000 and it's a great Digital, size and shape much like a 35mm. I own a Canon XTI DSLR.

For your great hobby you will need a great camera. So I suggest you buy from Canon. an 8x megapixels Canon digicam gives you awesome picture quality.

well I don't know about your location but at least I can give you one or two about the model.

For something affordable, I would probably pick a Canon Powershot 570 IS - it's quite small, easy to operate on automatic mode, yet it has manual mode so you can go crazy and be creative while also learning about photography. It takes AA rechargeable batteries so you don't have to worry in case you lose your battery/charger because they're available everywhere.

The A570 IS should go for under $200 in the US but since you're in the Phillipines... I would guess that there'll be a price differences.

There is no the best brand but there is a big choice of great brands such as Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Sony etc. Therefor first of all you need to choose a type of the camera. In my opinion if you want to have photography as a hobby you need a DSLR. Don't run for expensive cameras with many pixels. For beginner it's better to buy used or old model camera.

Your first reply was a good one however he never mentioned what model. A very good camera is the Canon PowerShot A630. 4X optical zoom, 8 megapixels. Will give you an excellent 8X10 print and is very good on AA rechargeable batteries. Just about anything in that price range would be a good camera via Fuji, Sony or Nikon.

Well, the best and most affordable don't really fit into the same camera. The most affordable camera right now that actually takes good pictures is the Samsung 630 6 Megapixel priced at $99. You can also upgrade to the Samsung 730 7 Megapixel for $30 more. Going up the market you will see the Casio Exilim EX-Z75. Great camera, video, pictures, all you'd want in a camera for $170-$200. Further up, there's the Nikon S50 and the Casio Exilim EX-Z770 both priced around $300. Those are your basic point-and-shoots. Higher than that, there's the Nikon D40 and D50 which are great SLRs.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W50 is $180, it was rated very highly by Consumer Reports. Definitely the least expensive among the best brands, and is better than some of the more expensive brands.

canon

All of the major brands are good. Choose a brand that appeals to you. Then you have to think about getting a spare battery, what size memory card, if you want an extended warranty, how much you can afford, what size zoom, if you want manual controls, the size of the camera, finding a reliable place to purchase it, and the list goes on and on and on.......

The first thing to realize is that almost any digital camera will take good pictures. If more people would read the manual more than once, they would be able to take better pictures. Usually, the person assumes it is the camera when it could be them not knowing exactly what to do. Just give yourself more photographic knowledge by doing more reading on the internet.

I really believe buying a camera is an individual choice.
The person needs to read alot of reviews on cameras so they can decide on the features that they really want and need.
Go to the store and hold them so you can see if they feel comfortable in your hands. If possible, take some pictures in the store to check the quality of the pictures.
I can only give a suggestion of what to look for in a new digital camera.
Good Luck

my suggestion
go to yahoo shopping
digital cameras
digital camera GUIDE
be sure to check titles on the left side
the guide should answer your questions

If you mean point and shoot...Casio Z75 or Z1050 is a great choice, nice and thin, lightweight, shoots photos and video with sound. 7.2-10.1 MP, Easy to use controls and a 2.5" screen to view.

If you mean SLR digital then go with Nikon D80, D40X

www.besybuy.com
www.samys.com (my favorite)
ww.costco.com
Recommend a Scandisk memory card, about 2GB.
Check you Sunday paper for ad sales or coupons.

Here's a contrarian thought: I disagree with everyone above. Here's why. Any idiot can take a decent camera using a Panavision camera. If you want to do this as a hobby and actually become a good photographer, you'd be better off starting out with a really junky camera. Seriously! Why? You'd learn even more about the real fundamentals of photography like using plenty of light and holding the camera really still. Then later on you can get an expensive camera and do all sorts of weird manual settings. Even a cheap camera will have a few settings you can change to learn to take decent pictures.

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-Di...
get this 1