It ~is~ really hard to choose a digital camera, isn't it? I was shopping for one this past fall, and what a nightmare! I didn't even know what the different megapixels were all about. Cena's advice is really good. Play with it in the store, so that you can decide if the zoom and clarity are good enough for your needs. But even though you say that most of your pics will be plants, I think that you'll likely find that you end up taking more and more pics of other things, too - friends, family, outings, sunsets, whatever. I find that I take way more shots of *everything* now, since I can easily delete them. I ended up getting a Canon Powershot A510 (3.2 megapixels). It's a good little camera for the price (somewhere around $250), but I have two problems with it. One, I find that the flash is WAY too bright, even when I set it to the lowest intensity, so that if I take a closeup shot, the people/plants look washed out. This means that unless I have optimal natural lighting, my shots are either dark or super-bright. And two, unless I have it on the "action" setting (for action shots), my shots come out a little fuzzy. Now, I know I'm not *that* spastic, so I clearly chose a camera that was too sensitive. Also, I wish it had a delay so that I could get into some of the family/friends shots that I take. And I would have liked a bigger screen to preview the photos. The pluses are great, though: the price was excellent for the product I got; the camera has a panorama setting, so I can take shots of an entire garden, or group photos of my gigantic extended family; and transfer from camera to computer is quick and almost effortless. For what it's worth, though, I've never heard anything bad about Nikon cameras... I just couldn't afford one. As for fussing around with the photos once they're taken, I've been told that it's much better to use a computer program, rather than do it on your camera. I only have Kodak Imaging on my computer, and I absolutely hate it. I can't do anything - resizing is minimal, I can't really play with colour. Also, with Kodak Imaging, the photo quality is really poor when I look at the shots on my computer (although they print out fine). And finally, I can't modify any shots (not even rotate them!), and then save them again in jpeg. Kodak Imaging is the absolute WORST. I'm getting Photoshop with my next computer, no question. Friends of mine use it, and it's wonderful. But because Kodak Imaging is so horrible, I tried zooming photos on my camera (after I've taken the shot), and they looked rather pixelated. I asked a friend about that, and apparently it's pretty standard. He suggested that I only edit photos on my computer, because even with a crappy program, it's generally better than editing with the camera itself. If you want to take a look at some of the shots I've taken with the Canon Powershot, I'll link to my yahoo photos account. This shot is of my tattoo - it was taken without a flash, and with no zoom. I just held the camera really close, maybe a foot away. Here is a link that might be useful: Canon Powershot close-up shot, with no flash

I agree about the mega- pixel count. There will come a point where the mega-pixel count on camera's will be more than what the human eye can even see. Remember the big stereo book shelf speakers of the 80's? Many of them had a tweeter high range/bass reflex range higer/lower than what the human ear could hear. Overkill, but the dogs could hear that ultra high range! A good mega-pixel is needed for print photos. For showing pictures via the web many times people use the huge mega-pixels that make the pictures so larger you have to scroll around to see it even with a large monitor. This is because people don't resize the photo but never the less large web files can be a waste. My first decent digital was a Sony Mavica that used the crap floppy, however it had a 10x opitcal lense which was extremely great for taking macro's and the photos were decent at that time, thoough never as good as a good 35mm in general but you could take some decent close-ups of flowers. Optical lense zoom is important, digital zoom is IMHO useless and you can do the same sort of digital zoom with even a basic photo editing program. I don't ever use digital zoom. I think the most important thing is to spend a few extra bucks and get a camera with a view finder, do not rely strictly on a small LCD screen because you will be sorry if you are in bright light. You will not be able to clearly (if at all) see the subject to be shot due to the bright light. Pot luck photo shots in sunlight is what I mean. I have a small decent Olympus 5.1 mega pixel given as a gift but it only has a LCD screen, no view finder. It is no good for taking pictures of plants in the sun.

My elder daughter recently started a blog about Vancouver Island (link below) and was using an old HP Photosmart 2.1 megapixel camera I bought her about 7 years ago for her blog photos. She has done pretty well with it and has taken some lovely photos but it has broken down and has been burning up batteries so quickly that I mentioned how happy Dlynn was with the new Olympus Stylus 1010. They don't seem to have that model in the shops where my daughter lives so yesterday she bought another similar one...the Olympus Stylus 9000. It has 12 megapixels and a 10 x optical zoom... wow! Last I spoke to her she was charging up the batteries getting ready for a week long trip to a remote island where there is no electricity. She was looking forward to photographing bald eagles and wilderness seascapes, so she decided she needed a better camera. Now I'm looking so forward to seeing what she is going to do with this one. It also has no viewfinder but the technology for bright LCD screens has improved since I bought my Stylus 800. She's used to having a viewfinder but we'll see how she gets on with this one. I'm sure it will be okay. I think I'm as excited as she is about it! SharonCb Here is a link that might be useful: Mich's West Coast Journal

Canon still has a very good product. I would recommend the Canon S3 IS based on what I have read. You can find excellent reviews at Steve's Digicam website.