I really liked the one Ernie Balch bought when he and I went to the camera store in New York(Olympus?)...

I was going to buy one of those (tell me again Ernie?)

I want good resolution, easy use, preview window, short video capability (15-20 second movies) and a good zoom.

Ernie paid around 600 I think.

Any advice for me on getting one of my own?

I bought a little carring case at Walmart, Nickle-Metal Hydride Batteries and the charger at Radio Shack (HOT TIP, 20 bucks)!!!

Consumer Reports gave this little camera a 5 star rating!! Humm.... that might not be a bad place to check up on what's out there now??

Good Luck!
Remember, Nickle-Metal Hydride Batteries!! I have litterly shot thousands and thousands of photos.

I bought a Sony Mavica 95 not too long ago, and I love it. It is handy because it saves the picture in a jpg format on a 3.5 disk instead of a memory stick or some other memory card that you have to download to your computer. This was important to me, because I may go out to a truck show ( I shoot freelance for a couple of minitrucking websites ), and I may shoot 400-500 shots over a weekend.

You can check www.bestbuy.com and www.circuitcity.com to see all the info about features you would ever need.

I do remember a site that you checked what was important to you and they would tell you what met your criteria. I looked and couldn't find it, but I will keep looking.

When you get ready to buy, keep http://www.streetprices.com in mind to find the best price, just make sure to check out the site to make sure they are on the up & up.

I just bought the Nikon Coolpix 995...its great. I tried to buy the 990 last year but they were hard to come by. I also looked at the Olympus 3040 which was similar in picture quality, and the new 4meg pixel Olympus 4040, but althought the 4040 and Nikon were similarly priced. I went with the Nikon, lok at how much "add ons" cost a falsh gun for the Niko was way cheaper than Olympus as it only accepts a certain type etc etc.

As you can see from the above posts most people love what they have already purchased. My self included.

I think I have read some post that said that jpg format loses a LOT of color, and if you can save many photos onto a 1.44 floppy then they must be compressed in a big way. Which is not good.

I bought an Olympus D510 2.1 megapixel for around 385.00 plus tax. It has a 3x Opticle zoom ( Optical zoom is very important )USb is important as well, and a 9x digital zoom, it takes video, the clip can range to 60 seconds with the 8meg card, but can be longer with a larger memory card. It does not record sound. It DOES have a nice panoramic mode, Sepia tone mode,( I love that ) Black & white mode as well as high quality tiff file modes which are uncompressed.

This camera has more options than I know what to do with.

Nikon and Olympus both have a great write up.

Check out the camera Jack Bought it looks real nice. It has many features the D510 has and it records sound ( 4 seconds ). I would find an independent site that reviews cameras or go to the Olympus web site ,read the specs and make a choice based on your needs.

The 3.34 megapixel is alway better than 2.1 but at the time 6-$700.00 for a camera was beyond my budget.

Also it is good to check e-bay to see if many of the model you like are for sale, that has been refurbished. No offense Jack but most of the c3000 cameras I clicked on for 400.00 were refurbished with only a 90 day warranty from Olympus. If I see a lot of cameras on e-bay refurbished, that tells me that, the model has had a lot of problems. I usually stay away.

I was going to buy the D490 but too many were on e-bay refurbished, I waited then they came out with the d510 which was a much improvement over the d490.

Just to make sure I did a search on e-bay and didn't find any refurbished ones. ( that make me feel better )

Good luck I hope Santa is good to you!

PS. that link above that MArk posted is the exact site I went to to make my decision, I was able to see actual pics from the camers I bought before I bought it. Thanks Mark, I bookmarked it.

[ December 02, 2001: Message edited by: Bob Rochon ]

[ December 02, 2001: Message edited by: Bob Rochon ]

http://techbargains.com/coupons.cfm

So much info....I will look into it further when I get home tonight....I gotta run and get some more Christmas windows done before the storm starts again!