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I have a Fuji 2650 which, I think, is one up from yours. I think the only difference is that mine has 3x optical zoom.

I have absolutely no complaints about the image quality when taken at full resolution (1600x1200). Indeed, some of my photos taken with it have been published.

A4-sized prints turn out perfectly, albeit with a high-end printer and paper. Crappy cheap inkjets just don't cut it.

But there's a huge benefit to this tech-race. More digital cameras. People with them, use them a lot more than they did with film. No cost to take, no cost to view, low cost to print or mail. I wrote an open-source project to make building galleries free-and-easy (primarily for my family initially, see it at Picture Pager on SourceForge) and that too is a benefit of digitals... they gain from the open source world.

So the only downside of 8MP cameras is that they're the Ferraris or Porsches of consumer-land. They push the technology, in a few years us mere mortals will benefit, but serious drivers and photographers benefit, at least slightly, now while bearing the hefty early-adopter price.

Imaging Resource has in-depth reviews of a great many digital cameras and has made similar comments regarding the impact of poor signal-to-noise ratio's in the past. I spent lots of time there before purchasing my current digital camera. Ended up w/ a Canon A70. I'm relatively satisfied w/ it, though I still pull out my old Pentax 35mm when I'm working in low light situations; the Canon's CCD just can't shake the noise w/ long exposures (especially when the image's fairly dark to begin w/).

On searching for more info I came across VIMAS, too, whose webpage (www.vimas.com/ve_imm.htm)talks about their enhanced JPEG type algorithm. So I think you might have something there Reziac -- anyone can have his own compression scheme.

Apparently Philips and Lucent might be able to claim prior art on some of the aspects of JPEG compression, according to this page from almost 2 years ago. Maybe someone else already spotted that article but I haven't checked. I wouldn't be surprised if Forgent is able to tie up courts for a wile if prior arts don't lead to instant dismissal of the case.

Infinite storage!

• An optional ($749) accessory Data Verification Kit DVK-E2 will permit verification of original untampered image data, allowing the EOS-1D Mark II to be used in legal proceedings and other applications where the ability to confirm that images haven't been altered in any way is crucial.

More info and a couple pictures at imaging-resource

What about the other 50%? When I'm looking for info about my cell-phone (e.g. to learn more about its Symbian programmability), most of the 1st page of result is "Get free ringtones and logos for $PHONEMODEL!" , it pisses me off. Likewise, I sometimes like to find reviews of some camera models (when Imaging Resource or DPReview don't have them), but all I get is "Review" sites where the camera gets glorious marks (or just the salesman intro paragraph) because they're trying to sell you the shit.

Her sister owns a Canon Rebel 35mm camera, and my wife has been a die-hard film person. In the last week, she hasn't touched our 35mm camera.

The digital rebel can use all the lenses, filters, tripod, flash, etc from her 35mm, takes amazing pictures, and is SLR. (she wouldn't touch a non-slr camera)

The auto-focus is great, the shutter speed is better then any other digital camera we've played with (and very adjustable). Manual focusing gives her all the control she'd normally have.

It snaps shots a little slow, about 4 in the first two seconds, then one a second after that, but for a digital at 6.3mp that's not too shabby.

In my opinion, this is *THE* digital camera to buy right now... and at the rate I'm going at, I'll need to buy a second one since my wife won't let me have time with ours.

You can find a decent review of it here.

Seeing as the poster appears to not understand that this here Interweb can have links, here are a few that I found in about 30 seconds:

Manufacturer's site.
Review on ImagingResource.com.

The second link kind of answers the question, proving - yet again - that asking Google before asking on Slashdot tends to be productive and smell less of a product placement.

For high-drain devices, use Ni-MH Batteries ( Nickel Mental-Hospital? hmm.. )

http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.H TM

IIRC they show the watts, mAh's, and minutes ( digicam-type load ) for a LOT of cells, including the anemic 'alkaline' cells.

The Nexcells are the most cost-effective, it seems, though I gather the Maha 100-minute charger is with Maha batteries amazing, I also gather that a given charger can be gentle with one kind of cells and destroy another, apparently similar kind.

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/batteries.htm

I still have the green Sanyo "industrial grade" cells I originally bought about 2 years ago, and I've been buying more since for other purposes. The charger (lightning pack 4000) is also excellent. I can't necessarily recommend the newer batteries they've stocked, but I definitely recommend the charger and the green-jacketed Sanyo batteries - they consistently perform well for me, and most reviews note that they perform BETTER than several NiMH battery brands with higher mAh numbers (they're only 1700 mAh).

go to http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.H TM for a quite good review of nimh's and an explanation. informative, scientific, extensive, etc.

There's also this Battery Shootout ranking system, skewed towards small portable electronic device effectiveness.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.H TM

An important snippet from that page:

The Importance of the Charger (!) One of the most interesting things I found was that the right (or wrong) charger can make a difference of nearly 2x in the results! The worst chargers (in terms of completeness-of-charge) produced "charged" batteries with only half the stored energy of ones charged with the best chargers. Interestingly though, the best overall results were obtained by combining the worst fast-charger with an inexpensive trickle-charger for topping-of and charge maintenance. - This combination was also the gentlest on the batteries. (Stay tuned for a detailed overview of battery chargers as I can get to it. For now, you can just take as given that the Maha C204 charger was among the most consistent I tested, and charged the batteries to close to their maximum capacity every time. ...

I use a digital camera (Minolta Dimage 7Hi) and I use his recommended ones: Powerex 1800 batteries and the very effective Maha C204.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.H TM

An important snippet from that page:

The Importance of the Charger (!) One of the most interesting things I found was that the right (or wrong) charger can make a difference of nearly 2x in the results! The worst chargers (in terms of completeness-of-charge) produced "charged" batteries with only half the stored energy of ones charged with the best chargers. Interestingly though, the best overall results were obtained by combining the worst fast-charger with an inexpensive trickle-charger for topping-of and charge maintenance. - This combination was also the gentlest on the batteries. (Stay tuned for a detailed overview of battery chargers as I can get to it. For now, you can just take as given that the Maha C204 charger was among the most consistent I tested, and charged the batteries to close to their maximum capacity every time. ...

I use a digital camera (Minolta Dimage 7Hi) and I use his recommended ones: Powerex 1800 batteries and the very effective Maha C204.

NiMH batteries last a factor 2-3 longer than NiCd batteries, are less environmentally unfriendly, and lack the memory effect that made people hate rechargeable batteries in the first place. What this means is that a fully charged MiMH battery will last as long, if not longer, than a regular alkaline battery in the same application. Capacity of batteries is rated in milliamp hours. A penlight rated at 2000 mAh will, in theory, provide 2 amps of power for an hour. It goes without saying that bigger is better.

This guy has tested several dozen different types of NiMH penlights for use in digital cameras. Although there are many other uses for the things, this seems to be one of the more common and at least vaguely representative of what to expect.

When choosing a charger, make sure it supports, and is set to charge NiMH batteries. Running a NiCd cycle on them will yield unsatisfactory results. There are fast chargers available that will charge your batteries in as little as an hour and it's commonly accepted that these don't harm the batteries much.

Imaging-resource.com did a great review of a ton of rechargeable batteries. The electronics geek in you will enjoy his breakdown of how he conducted the tests.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.H TM

They don't have the new 2300's yet (because it takes the author a good deal of time to do a good test).

I use NiMH and have been very happy with the number of times they recharge and how long they last.

Enjoy.

Take a look at The Great Battery Shootout. It is targeted to digital cameras and AA rechargables, but I found it to be very helpful. It gives a good amount of background information. It's a long article, but well worth the read.

Did you try searching Google?

Its really fun to read the Windows version as well.

Just take a look at this article at www.imaging-resource.com.

This isn't a Mac bigot. This is a guy that completed a slide show project, after much struggle, using DVDit on a Wintel box. "Some helpful souls suggested we'd enjoy life more if we used iDVD on the Mac. So we did."

He started working at 4:50 p.m. Every darn thing he tried just plain worked the way he expected. "At 6:10 we were ready to burn. ...And we'd spent the whole time -- not just a large part of it -- arranging the show contents rather than fighting the program interface.... We were done at 6:26." He said "...the only [really] aggravating part of the whole process [was] getting the blessed cellophane wrapping off the blank DVD. We can't wait to get these in spindles."

Apple's situation has been the same as it always been. Microsoft, like IBM before it, has the hearts and minds of the corporate IT departments and wins all the top-down purchasing decisions.

But everyone who actually has to use the things finds that Apple's hardware and software, overall, are just plain easier, nicer, faster, and more productive to use than Wintel gear.

As long as the people who actually use computers have any say whatever in what computers they use, Apple has a bright future.

Skip over the Scanning of the actual photo, and get a negative scanner.

They work faster, better, and have some automation to them. Unfortunately, most 35mm negatives are chopped into blocks of four, but that will at least 1/4 your time spent monitoring the machine.

If you switched to the newer APS film, the negative scanner can run through the whole row.

Here is one that does both 35mm and APS. There are also other reviews on that site of different models.

If you're interested, there are a few reviews here, here and here which influenced my decision.

I love my 602 and certainly wouldn't have gone for anything else - if you've got any questions feel free to give me a shout.

• Adjustable Focus: Well, no, you can't adjust focus manually, it's automatic. You CAN do spot metering, though, to focus on exactly the point you want. You CAN manually adjust EV, ISO, white balance though. I've never had a problem with the focus not working perfectly.
  
• Macro capability: Yup. You can get as close as 3 cm.
  
• Flash: Yup, and you can set it to always on, always off, or auto, and can set the brightness level.
  
• Decent pixel size: It is 2.1 megapixel, it can do 640x480, 1024x768, or 1600x1200. I can't imagine needing more than 1600x1200 for computer work. 1600x1200 is great for printing up to 8.5 x 11.
  
• Lossless format: Yup, it can do uncompressed TIFF, and two compression levels for JPGs. It can also create stop-motion 10 frame animated GIFs, and 320x240x8fps MPEG video (no sound), length only limited by storage space. (On a 128MB stick, you can do up to 22 minutes, or 90 minutes of 240x120)
  
• Battery: It really shines here, it can take either Sony Infolithium -OR- standard AA cells. Go buy a 4 pack of AA NiMH batteries and a charger for like $30, and you're laughing. And you can use standard AA in a pinch (it drains these like water though)
  
• LCD screen: BEAUTIFUL LCD screen. Very very bright (adjustable), sharp, and accurate. I think it's around 110,000 pixel screen.
  
• Storage options: Sony Memory Stick.. yeah I know it's proprietary, but these babies really do rock. Pick up a 128MB stick for $70 USD. (Unfortunately, the camera only comes with a measly 4MB stick)
  

• Steve's Digicams
  
• Imaging Resource
  

dude, you are so misinformed (or you're trolling, in which case you are misinforming others):

1. Photoshop upgrades are only $150. They usually have at least 1 or 2 significant new features that make the upgrade worth buying (like 5.5->6 added a full vector type engine). Plus, when I was doing photo retouching for a living, $150 was the target price for a single small retouching/restoration job (about 1 1/2 hours of work).
2. Some people aren't satisfied/can't work with a point-and-shoot camera. A decent, professional level digital camera, that works with existing pro lens systems is way more than $600... the Nikon D1x is over $5000. If you don't need the flexibility of a full digital system, but still want the flexibility of interchangeable lenses, it is still cheaper to buy an N90 or N100, some decent lenses, and a film scanner (total of around $1500-2000).
3. Plus, while cameras like the D1x are able to rival some 35mm film stocks in quality, they aren't even close to the quality of a 2-1/4 or 8x10 transparency.

So, basically what I am saying is that there are still a lot of people scanning from transparencies, and that some really good retouching tools (plus being able to deal with large files) are worth the price of Photoshop.

If all you ever have to deal with are teeny RGB images targeted to the web, by all means, use the GIMP... it'll get the job done. But if you ever have a need to edit a 75Mb CMYK image (a 2 page 8/-1/2x11 full bleed spread at 150 line screen), and you'll get fired (or not get another contract from the same people) if the color is off or if there is a huge scratch right through the middle of the model's face, then $150 for a Photoshop upgrade, or even $600 for the full version of Photoshop, starts to look quite reasonable.

Interestingly, Contax just came out with what I believe is the first full-size sensor in a digital SLR, here's an article about it. But yeah full-size sensor, EOS lenses, in an SLR, that would rock! Oh yeah and it would be nice if it was under $1000...someday..

I think you're not quite correct about this. The current top of the line CCD film scanners (4000dpi), quite closely approach the theoretical limit for chemical film at 35mm. A 4000dpi scanner gives an output of about 20 megapixels. The moment digital camera's have this resolution they are equal to film. This is only theoretically. In practice it will happen much sooner because the pixels a digital camera produces are generally much 'cleaner' than the filmgrain/scanner combo.

In my opinion digital camera's already surpassed analog camera's with 35mm film. See for example the new Canon 1D camera. It will take a little longer for medium-format film camera's to be replaced but I think this will be a matter of 2-3 years.

It's the Olympus C-211, review here, Olympus product page here.

It takes Polaroid 500 film.

By the way, the digital->polaroid printers sort of screw up that "evidence" advantage of Polaroids don't they?

Second, I wouldn't mind one of these mp3 cd players. They also plays VCD, and are fairly inexpensive.

Finally, for sheer coolness factor and utility, I would take a Ricoh RDC-7 "Image Capture Device". This thing is amazing! It can fit in a shirt pocket, has a very high-res 2" LCD, zoom to 3x optically, and can record movies with sound or just sound alone (with a built-in speaker for playback). It also has a 3 megapixel CCD chip with two focusing modes which makes it a very capable digital camera. Need to become an international spy? This thing quickly sucks up highly compressed blank and white .tif files for OCR. As if that's not enough, it also places the CCD on a special piezo-electric mount so that it can shift it by a half a pixel and combine two exposures into a 7 megapixel image for when you need that extra, extra, extra fine detail. Phew! I've got to stop talking about it. Just go to either here or here for a review. And it only ranges from around $600 to $900, too! Just don't expect to have too much manual photographic control over aperture or shutter speed. But screw a Handspring, I'd take one of those and keep all my documents on it! Just think of it as a pocket size tape recorder, digital camera, camcorder, scanner, and taker of big-ass 7 megapixel files. (And the unreleased successer in Japan has wireless Internet access, a touchscreen, and PDA functionality! Imagine that...)

When there was a discussion about slot loading small CDs & DVDs before, (when the Sony Mavica camera with the 3" CD was brought up), the site that was linked to had a picture of "special expander donuts". If you had one handy, you'd be set.

Except that those CD-R are Sony specifics, so I doubt they'll be as cheap as 1$ a piece.

While it is possible that the device will use CD-R media "branded" by sony in some way, 77mm CD-R media is not unusual. You can pick it up from a number of places, including CDR Outlet (linked from this comment earlier).

Right now, that media is pretty pricy, from $1-$3 per piece of media, but as more uses for it develop, I expect it will eventually become somewhat cheaper (No more than US$0.25) than the full-size CD-R media.

While Sony could easily come up with a reason to use "special" 77mm CD-R media, I doubt they will. It would just mean they'd sell less cameras. Anyone can find a camera with more functionality than the mavica (except for the CD-R support), and Sony would be smartest not to push them.

This is discussed in the article on This Page. It writes in packet style (like a CD-R drive would) so you don't need to finalize between sessions. It looks like you get about 120mb worth of images on one 77mm CD-R.

This Page shows the specifications, including the fact that it has both a screen which can be shut off and a viewfinder with a smaller LCD in it. No, it's not a real viewfinder, but it is a viewfinder; Shielded from the light and usable right in your face.

Okay, I hate to keep any kind of back and forth war going, but I would like to address these points, which again are covered by the article.

Ok, smacking a CD writer once, and walking down the road with it are 2 very different things. A new walkman works better than an old one. How is this going to stand up to REAL USE.

Actually, the article made it sound like they were whacking the CD Writer repeatedly during the write (and in different locations), not just once. I'm sorry I didn't specify that more clearly earlier.

In some formats, you can finalize and open a second session. This product hasn't got an official "this is what is going to be built" model yet, which may behave quite diffently

Well, the demo unit looks pretty much like a finished product. I'm betting pretty heavily that while they will be addressing firmware bugs for a little while (Sony hates to release buggy products, the PS2 Launch in Japan notwithstanding. I'm pretty certain, based on what I know about production cycles, that it's in a code freeze - No new features are likely to be added at this point, until they're ready to produce a new model.

Ever hear of a Kodak Photo-CD, didn't really take off, did it? Ever see those CD-RW's labelled especially for MUSIC? They cost 5 times as much... I've been writing music to regular CDs for a long time now, seems to work about the same, doesn't mean that they can't screw with that somehow in order to sell a proprietary product.

Again, the article discusses this issue:

It turns out that "packet writing" is the key to avoiding this problem, as it provides a way for the CD recorder to drop discrete chunks of data into place, without having to open and close a "session" each time. Tricky stuff, but it works. In order to read the resulting disks with a normal CD drive though, you have to "finalize" a session, which eats about 8% (roughly 13 megabytes for sessions after the first one, for lead-in and lead-out areas) of the total disk space. Thus, you'll want to view the images in the camera until you're ready to offload a fair number of them. Alternatively, if you have a packet-capable CD-R drive (note, CD-R, not just a CD-ROM drive), driver software from Adaptec (and possibly others) will let you read the disks, even if they haven't been "finalized."

We can, however attest to the fact that the iMac supports both the 77mm disk size, as well as the Adaptec Volume Access extension, as we were able to successfully read "finalized" CDs from the MVC-CD1000 on our slot-loading iMac.

So in other words, you can read these suckers all over the place, though some additional software (For UDF) may be required.

Please, take the time to visit the real world and how real business works. There are plenty of data formats which are all pretty much the same thing. Copy protection on CDs comes in a lot of formats, you might have to have a CD which is only SLIGHTLY different to work in their products, which was pretty much the idea behind the memory stick...

Yeah, I can see how you might think that, and in fact the 77mm CD-R media they are using IS in fact Sony media. However, since Sony is otherwise going with the ISO standard, I think it's strongly unlikely that you won't be able to use any 77mm CD-R media in the camera. It's not like Sony is the only source for Minidisc media, and I think that they're going to want to be able to support other manufacturers' media just so that people won't consider this another minidisc (although I've already explained that that's not such an issue IMO) or betamax. Sony's already making a commitment that you be able to read the [finalized] discs anywhere. When you pop a blank CD in, as per the article, it asks you to "initialize" it. So why would you assume that it's going to be proprietary media?

Okay, I hate to keep any kind of back and forth war going, but I would like to address these points, which again are covered by the article.

Ok, smacking a CD writer once, and walking down the road with it are 2 very different things. A new walkman works better than an old one. How is this going to stand up to REAL USE.

Actually, the article made it sound like they were whacking the CD Writer repeatedly during the write (and in different locations), not just once. I'm sorry I didn't specify that more clearly earlier.

In some formats, you can finalize and open a second session. This product hasn't got an official "this is what is going to be built" model yet, which may behave quite diffently

Well, the demo unit looks pretty much like a finished product. I'm betting pretty heavily that while they will be addressing firmware bugs for a little while (Sony hates to release buggy products, the PS2 Launch in Japan notwithstanding. I'm pretty certain, based on what I know about production cycles, that it's in a code freeze - No new features are likely to be added at this point, until they're ready to produce a new model.

Ever hear of a Kodak Photo-CD, didn't really take off, did it? Ever see those CD-RW's labelled especially for MUSIC? They cost 5 times as much... I've been writing music to regular CDs for a long time now, seems to work about the same, doesn't mean that they can't screw with that somehow in order to sell a proprietary product.

Again, the article discusses this issue:

It turns out that "packet writing" is the key to avoiding this problem, as it provides a way for the CD recorder to drop discrete chunks of data into place, without having to open and close a "session" each time. Tricky stuff, but it works. In order to read the resulting disks with a normal CD drive though, you have to "finalize" a session, which eats about 8% (roughly 13 megabytes for sessions after the first one, for lead-in and lead-out areas) of the total disk space. Thus, you'll want to view the images in the camera until you're ready to offload a fair number of them. Alternatively, if you have a packet-capable CD-R drive (note, CD-R, not just a CD-ROM drive), driver software from Adaptec (and possibly others) will let you read the disks, even if they haven't been "finalized."

We can, however attest to the fact that the iMac supports both the 77mm disk size, as well as the Adaptec Volume Access extension, as we were able to successfully read "finalized" CDs from the MVC-CD1000 on our slot-loading iMac.

So in other words, you can read these suckers all over the place, though some additional software (For UDF) may be required.

Please, take the time to visit the real world and how real business works. There are plenty of data formats which are all pretty much the same thing. Copy protection on CDs comes in a lot of formats, you might have to have a CD which is only SLIGHTLY different to work in their products, which was pretty much the idea behind the memory stick...

Yeah, I can see how you might think that, and in fact the 77mm CD-R media they are using IS in fact Sony media. However, since Sony is otherwise going with the ISO standard, I think it's strongly unlikely that you won't be able to use any 77mm CD-R media in the camera. It's not like Sony is the only source for Minidisc media, and I think that they're going to want to be able to support other manufacturers' media just so that people won't consider this another minidisc (although I've already explained that that's not such an issue IMO) or betamax. Sony's already making a commitment that you be able to read the [finalized] discs anywhere. When you pop a blank CD in, as per the article, it asks you to "initialize" it. So why would you assume that it's going to be proprietary media?

On the fourth page, they say than an "expander donut" (check the image) will be available.

In fact, virtually any CD drive out there can physically handle the 77mm CD size, including the new slot-loading iMacs! (Emphasis on the latter, because we really didn't think this would be the case, until we checked the specs.

The only catch is that it can't handle the Type III cards, so things like a microdrive are out. Still, it's a really nice system to have...

As far as my experiences have gone, Nikon makes great digital cameras with lots of useful features. My Coolpix 950 has served me very well. For instance, one unique feature it sports is one where it will take a number of shots in a row and automatically select the sharpest and only save that one! Very nice in low light. Kodak also makes nice cameras. My first camera was a one-megapixel Kodak DC200. I took to school every day and ended up with over 3,600 pictures by the time I got my new Nikon! Kodak generally has very good lenses with accurate color balance.

Be sure to get at least 2 megapixels. By now you can get 3 if you really want to shell out the money. Of course, when you get into the professional models, the sky's the limit. I've seen an in creadible 6 megapixel that Kodak makes for thousands of dollers. At this point, digitals can really replace film cameras, since often these cameras are traditional film cameras with the film area replaced with digital circuitry; professionals can therefore use their lenses.

Be careful about interpolation; some companies will try to pass off their cameras as a higher res then they really are. Fuji and Agfa are two examples with their SuperCCD and PhotoGenie technologies, respectively. While these special techniques might do more then a typical resample, they are still no substitute for a higher CCD. Same applies for "digital zoom". That's marketing speak for resizing or resampling in the camera. Don't expect anything from it.

One more thing: be careful what kind of media you are investing in. Some like Sony's Mavica line, but I would rather not carry around a bunch of unreliable floppy disks if I don't have to. Also, Sony's other new camera uses their own Memory Stick format too, which will make me avoid them flat out. I've already invested a lot in CompactFlash, and I don't want to support a proprietary format with no real advantages and a few disadvantages (higher price, lower space, etc.) CompactFlash is, IMHO, the better standard when compared to Smartmedia, as it is generally cheaper and available in higher capacities. There are two types of Compactflash slots; type 1, and type 2. Type 2 slots are really nice; they take IBM Microdrives that hold 340 megs of pictures!

By now, Digital Cameras can definately take very good pictures that rivel film based cameras. When they are printed out on a modern color ink-jet priter with photo paper, they make very sharp prints indeed! I would encourage anyone to go to a local computer store and print some sample photos from a store inkjet. Or even better: you can download a jpeg from Imaging Resource and print it out. You WILL be impressed.

After doing a fair amount of research (reading every review I could find on certain models of cameras) and changing my mind several times about which one would best suit my needs, I've decided on a Sony CyberShot DSC-D770. I selected this camera because the 35mm I use most often is an SLR, and after much deliberation I decided to stick with the SLR style. The Sony's resolution (1.5 megapixel) is a bit on the low side by today's standards, but that's the only real shortcoming of this camera. Still, I think 1344x1024 output will be sufficient for my purposes. What I particularly liked about this camera is the wealth of manual controls, especially the zoom and focusing rings.

Other cameras (less than $1000 street price) worth considering:

• SLR: Olympus C-2500L and Canon PowerShot Pro 70. Although the Sony was my favorite of the SLRs, for someone else's needs one of these might be a better bet.
• Versatility: Hands down, one of the Nikon Coolpix cameras. There's a wealth of lens attachments and other accessories available for these things. And while not the most compact, they're certainly less bulky than an SLR. And the new 990 is a 3.3 megapixel powerhouse.
• Bang for the buck: Casio QV-3000EX. For a little more than $900 you can get one of these 3.3 megapixel beasts in combination with IBM's 340MB MicroDrive. Unfortunately there's no external flash attachment, and the lens is not threaded to accept attachments, but someone will find a way around this limitation.
• Portability: Take your pick of Canon's PowerShot A5, A50, S10, or S20 (increasing in capability from sub-megapixel to 3.3 megapixel). These little jewels are about the size of Canon's Elph APS film cameras, which is hard to beat for a go-anywhere camera.

Regards,
Jeremy

(And if anyone's interested in how that Sony works out, I'll be receiving the camera this week. I'll be happy to share my own impressions of it once I've had a chance to play with it.)

I did a lot of research into digital cameras last year. I didn't buy one, but here's some of the info I found . . .

How good of a camera you need (and how much you end up spending on one) depends on what you plan to do with the pictures.

If all you want to do is post pix on the web, any 1-megapixel (or less) camera should do a respectable job for you, since web pix are generally low res (640 x 480 or less). At 72 ppi screen res, that's 8.9 x 6.7 inches (pretty big).

What you need the extra pixels for is printing photos onto paper. There's a big controversy over the resolution photos should be printed at, with the general consensus being in the 150 to 300 ppi range. Generally, you should avoid printing at less than 200 ppi.

At 200ppi, you'll need a 1 mp camera to print a standard 4x6 shot, 1.5 mp to do a 5x7, 3.2 mp to do an 8x10, 6.2 mp to do an 11x14.

The highest res digicams available today for under US$1,000, are ~3 mp. Best 3 mp models currently include the Canon PowerShot S20, Nikon CoolPix 990. The 2 mp models of these cameras are the S10 and Coolpix 950. They are all great cameras, and 2 mp models just dropped in price with the introduction of the 3 mp models.

For reviews, visit:

• http://photo.askey.net
  http://www.imaging-resource.com
  http://www.lonestardigital.com
  http://www.steves-digicams.com/cameras.ht ml

Note that you can get good deals buying 2nd hand cameras. A lot of users sell their 1-yr-old cameras to buy the latest models. Also, you should buy a camera that's small. If it's too big to carry around, it won't get used. (The Canons are small, sturdy, and they look cool. Kodaks generally suck in this regard.)

So why didn't I buy a digicam?

I wanted to print really big pictures, and for that you still can't beat film. Film is cheap, and you can scan onto PhotoCD whatever individual frames you like. You get a 6 mp (!) image which you can print onto 11 x 17 paper.

• http://www.templetons.com/brad/pixels.html
  http://photo.net/photo/point-and-shoot.ht ml
  http://photo.net/photo/point-and-sho ot-tips.html

BTW, for a /.-style photo site, check out:

• http://www.techphoto.org

Here is an excellent website that has many in-depth reviews of digital cameras, including sample pictures:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/DIGCAM 01.HTM

They also review Kodak's Picture CD where you can take your standard print film to a regular film development house and for about $8-10 extra get back a CD with your pictures in addition to the prints. (resolution about 1.5K by 1K, but equivalent in quality to most 2Megapixel cameras)

I think it is clear that your choice in cameras depends on several quantifiable aspects, like price and storage medium, and harder-to-quantify aspects like battery life (this varies widely between users) and image quality.

The two best review sites I've seen are the Digital Camera Resource and the Imaging Resource. The former has shorter reviews and better reader comments, while the latter has very comprehensive reviews and image comparisons.

I typically use the Digital Camera resource to narrow down the search, and then use the Imaging Resource to compare image quality. Imaging Resrouce also measures how long between pressing the shutter release and when the picture is taken, something I think is important to consider if you photograph moving subjects.

I've bought/helped buy 4 cameras in the last couple years. For myself I have a Kodak DC-260, and I've suggested one Nikon Coolpix 950, a Kodak DC-215, and a Kodak DC-280. The Kodak cameras I've mentioned here all have amazing image quality, and the DC-215 is rather inexpensive as it is old and produces 1152x864 images. The Nikon also takes great pictures, and has a lot of features. I think all of these cameras work fine with linux, my DC-260 certainly does. These cameras were bought at different times with different people's needs in mind. A friend has an Olympus D-340L, which takes good pictures (though it's color saturation isn't as good as the Kodaks') and is fabulous indoors without a flash (something the Kodaks aren't very good at). Note that the Kodak's aren't known for rapid picture-taking ability.

The Casio 2000UX lost to the DC-280 on image quality, but it had an interesting feature set. The Coolpix 950 beat the Kodak DC-265 in features, and had comparable image quality. The DC-215 beat the comparable Olympus cameras on price, and especially beat the Olympus D-400, which has complaints about lack of lavender hues. I've never liked the image quality on Sony's older cameras, and I think the floppy disks are too small or else the lossy image compression is too aggressive (don't know which).

Memory format isn't that big of an issue, and neither is USB capability, because of dedicated card readers. Time between shutter release and the picture being taken will affect every picture you take. Low-light ability may be important to you. Image quality reigns supreme for me, and is an area where Kodak does well (except perhaps the DC-240). Point-and-click versus configurable f-stops, etc, will make a difference for some people. And if you've got $5000 to blow, check out the high end 6 megapixel SLR digital cameras from Kodak!

One last bit of advice--try to get a 'satisfaction guaranteed' return policy. If the camera's pictures come out a little to red, is that a defect? Better safe than sorry.

I recently shopped for one, and purchased one after doing a ton of reading and comparing online.
But, there are so many out there with different trade offs, it all depends on what's important to you.
I would really recommend starting by going to a site like Active Buyer's Guide
which will allow you to give it preferences, and it will suggest cameras and allow you to compare several ones side by side.

Then, start reading around about it. For some good expert evaluations, try:
Megapixel
Imaging Resource
Steve's Digicams

For some generally useful user reviews, check out:
PC Photo Review

Good Luck!

Actually, there is already an image editing (Digita F/X) application written for the Digita OS on the Kodak cameras. There's a bit of a review at Imaging Resource.