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Flash is NOT shock sensitive, check out this link for proof. Cheap USB sticks with bad sodder jobs or cheap PCB's might be subject to shock but the flash itself is most certainly NOT.

i'd recommend those only if he's getting into nature photography. otherwise any point and shoot. _any_.

if he wants to get into _photography_ I'd recommend just starting to take a lot of photos with something, cellphone camera or whatever. if he wants to get into chemistry then film. and keeping an eye out. or just framing things with fingers. and checking out stuff like http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lm01.html (time life's 100 most important photographs, the subset at this link isn't actually the best of whats in it at all, a print version was in magazine shops a while ago again) - what makes a good photo? very rarely it's your kit.

if he just wants to document family moments etc, then again some slr is good since they can be more forgiving for getting somewhat decent photo out.

but you don't just "get into photography" by buying a kit and then become better by adding more to that kit, it just doesn't work that way.

The reason why Canon and Nikon doesn't get targeted by Kodak is because they probably licensed or partnered with each other early on to develop or sell the digital cameras back in the late 1970s, mainly because they were large and clunky, and the pros back then didn't trust those gadgets to deliver something commercially viable for their business.

Brief history of digital camera

The digital camera (using CCD sensor) was developed in 1975 by engineer Steve Sasson of Kodak.

A CompactCard survived a bridge explosion with the photo: http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/blast-destroys-camera-flash-card-survives/

Another card one survived the collapse of one of the Twin Towers, with photos from the photographer that perished: http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0111/biggart_intro.htm

"Yep I'm American too and I've seen the twisted burned bodies in Falluja."

In person? Details?

Desert heat and decay make for propaganda-genic corpses. There are lots of such photos for the Googling.

Of course WP is legal to use against combatant personnel (so is napalm), but there aren't many WP casualties to show for it. Many bodies are "twisted" due to being killed in combat.

Some famous Gulf War examples of generic non-WP casualties.
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt_index.html

Or this?

Kinda reminiscent to me.

Yep, every time one of these types of conversations happens I point to this story. If a CF card can survive having a building collapse on it with just the protection of a commercial camera around it then I think that something engineered to survive should have no problems.

and they aren't immune to shocks damaging them.

Yes they are, for all intents and purposes. If you don't believe me see this story about a CF card that survived the collapse of the WTC.

Don't bother, I dug a few up for you. A tad more recent event than your link I'm sorry to say. An incident that came to be known as "The Turkey Shoot" or also "The Highway of Death".
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt_index.ht ml
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=126&ar ticle=14772&archive=true

In case you'd like to brush up on some of our other activities in the area before the recent wars, here's another good place to start.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/

Strange, I didn't see any civilians, much less women and children in those pictures. I was thinking more along the lines of these pictures.

Your comparing the deaths of fleeing uniformed Iraqi soldiers to mass graves filled with civilians is like comparing a German machine gunner on D-Day to Anne Frank!

If you need links to mass graves and the real torture that went on before both of these wars, I guess I could dig those up too.

Yup, exactly. Any idiot cannot take these pictures with a phone camera.

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lm_intro.ht ml

Some photographers are famous and produce pictures that form the rememberance of our times or even lead to change by altering public opinion. I can think of three pictures that went a long way to souring the public on our wars in Viet Nam and Cambodia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings "John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen year-old runaway, kneeling over the dead or dying body of Jeffrey Miller, shot in the mouth by an unknown Ohio National Guardsman."

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0410/faas.ht ml "The 12 or 14 negatives on that single roll of film, culminating in the moment of death for a Viet Cong, propelled Eddie Adams into lifelong fame. The photo of the execution at the hands of Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan, at noon on Feb. 1, 1968 has reached beyond the history of the Indochina War - it stands today for the brutality of our last century."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Th%E1%BB%8B_Kim_ Ph%C3%BAc ". Associated Press photographer Nick Út earned a Pulitzer Prize for the photograph."

As far as I know, these photographs were the high point of otherwise unremarkable careers. By luck, the photographer was in the right place at the right time.

On the other hand, through skill, there were photographers who always managed to be in the right place at the right time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Eisenstaedt There will always be jobs for photographers like him no matter how many cell phone cameras there are.

Yeah, except leave out the "could" part.

Lots of people refused to leave the Black Zone, and the government didn't make them. Lots of the ones left behind died of cancer or thyroid problems. But lots didn't. They farm land that's so radioactive the crops have problems, but some of them are still alive. People have children in the black zone, and only 15-20% of them DON"T have serious health problems.

How about if I type up a large scientific paper loaded with non-existant links, and then their software will "fix" it by finding the proper material out on the net and pointing the links to it. This could revolutionize the science of hand waving!

here is probably the ULTIMATE real life test. CF in a metal body camera apears to be virtually indistructable.

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0111/biggart_int ro.htm

Bill Biggart and Bill Biggart's Microdrive had the World Trade Center fall on them. The Microdrive was recoverable. Bill wasn't. This little story allayed any fears I had about Microdrives.

Another possibility, if you don't want to or can't shell out for a Steadicam, is a Glidecam. A Glidecam 4000 or 2000 mated with a body vest shouldn't put out a videographer who has already shelled out for a good camera.

Bill Biggart was shooting the World Trade Center collapse using a digital camera with a Microdrive.

He tragically did not survive, but the Microdrive did.

This particularlly grotesque example convinced many that Microdrives weren't anywhere near as fragile as some people thought

Get your facts straight. Bill Gates and Corbis are the ones saving the images for historical record - not the ones destroying it.

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0111/biggart _intro.htm

Oh, and thanks for the pointer ... I really appreciate it ...

For the ultimate story of CF rugidness you have to see This link.

Let's see... Your sources are the U.S. Military and CDI. CDI describes itself like so: "CDI was founded in 1972 by recently-retired, senior U.S. military officers."

Do you really expect those sources to say "Wow, the Patriot really doesn't work at all! We're sorry for leading you to believe it does during the all of Desert Storm. Oh, and we need more of your tax dollars, please."

I suggest reading this article from a pulitzer pricze winner during Desert Storm.
I certainly place more trust in that than something coming out of a "us.mil" domain or it's close ties...

I personnally only learned recently of the awfull (and criminal) turkey shooting on the highway of death that happend in gulf war I. I don't think we'll know any detail (that is outside the outcome of war) before very long.

Since the site is gone for the moment, here are some quick links:
Web Site:
www.terapin-mine.com
Purchase:
http://www.thinkgeek.com
Reviews:
http://www.digitaljournalist.org
http://www.edgereview.com
http://computers.cnet.com