Sydney, Any news? Did you get a new camera? September 26 is day to mark. Why? Photokina will start that day. Photokina is a large convention in where all the camera companies show off the new lines, makes, and models. Some companies are already making announcements of what they will be showing. I see your price range and there are a lot of good cameras in that range. It seems that to meet your expectations you might look into getting a camera that allows you have manual controls over the camera. Do you want to stay with Point and Shoot or would you like to move to the DSLR range? Some things to think about: a P&S camera is compact and it easier to part from if you move on to another camera. If you go the DSLR route, you are just not buying a camera, you are buying into a system. Unless you have money to throw around you will most likely keep that camera a lot longer. You will have to buy lenses for the camera body. In most cases the lens can cost as much, or near, as the camera body. Therefore you find yourself dedicated to that company. There are some very nice entry level DSLRs out there. Nikon had the D50, I played with it for a while, but I decided to pass. I had the Canon XT Rebel, but I fell in love with the Olympus E500 so I gave the Canon to my wife. I can expand later if you want on these cameras if you want more info. Check dpreview.com you can find just about any camera there and it has customer ratings as well. Unfortunately, the best advice I can give you right now is when it comes to cameras, most salesman at retail stores donÂt have a clue, honestly, they donÂt. So donÂt listen to them. I get angered at times when I hear them make recommendations based solely on the amount of megapixels a camera has. This is just FYI but my current cameras are: P&S - Canon PowerShot 620, Olympus SP 500 UZ DSLR - Canon 300D XT/ Rebel, Olympus E500, Olympus E1 Zitro

Oh, my, I am the homeowner, not a pro, that is why I am asking. We are going through a flat-rate broker this time (we've had two pros, please let's not go into that debate:) and their rules warn against using photos that have people. So they may take them out, anyway, if they are that vigilant but they may not. Both pictures show the house, they are about 20 years apart, one circa 1896, the other 1876. I dated the later one by the number of stars on the American flag seen hanging from the house and a tree. That picture shows an older man and woman and a younger generation sitting on the front lawn. The earlier photo shows the same couple, 20 years younger as well as another man holding the lead to a pair of yoked horses. I doubt he is their servant as the other man is barefoot and wearing raggedy or rolled up pants. Everyone is white as far as I can tell. Both photos are very old and the sepia is overexposed in some areas to the extent that making out features and details is a little difficult. The main things are that they would appeal (I think) to those interested in historic homes, show the house as it changed, and date the house to before its tax date, which will, of course, appear in the listing. The vagaries of how such things can be interpreted are, I admit, a bit beyond me. Of course, the subtext of a Klan photo would be pretty clear, but I know other cautions (don't show kids because elderly might feel discriminated against) elude me. I don't mean to argue with them or say they aren't valid, I'm sure they are, but even though most people consider me a raging liberal, I don't recognize the offense in some things that, apparently, the courts do. So I just wanted to know from professionals who make this stuff their business if including these would be acceptable or not.

Really, any way of using this forum that produces useful feedback and information seems okay to me -- isn't that the whole point of the forum, to get and give ideas and help? Multiple posts, many questions, few answers, whatever. I don't get being critical of how someone else uses the forum, how often they post, or reply to other's posts. Not everyone who needs help will be able to provide it to others equally; often the OP responds to responses and never gets another response; continuing in a thread with a slight change of focus ( ie what about *this* color?) often also gets no further answers. And, as we all have experienced, the search function is often not helpful. I am *extremely* grateful for those who do respond frequently and helpfully! and, especially, for those with a talent for recalling other threads, reveals, and sites that can be helpful!

I guess I'm a sentimental old fool (at 53, LOL). Here is my experience... I have a few picture books printed online and they are great. However, IMHO, they can't compare to actual printed (or developed) pictures. I was tasked with writing a biography of my M&D's life, and believe me, it wasn't short! To do this I used verbal accounts from my M&D; a few thousand slides from my M&D, GP's and Great A&U; hundreds of photographs; my Great Aunt's daily journals; and tape recordings we sent from overseas to my GPs'. I digitized and transcribed almost all of it. Even though the slides were decades old, the digital quality was amazing. The scanned photographs, even the old, old, B&W's, were generally good quality. I only used a few pictures that were taken with a digital camera. The best part of the whole process was the obvious telling of their life story by my parents to me. As an adult you hear stories you weren't aware of as a child or wouldn't have been privileged to. The second best was handling the old photographs. Actually feeling them in my hands, turning them over to see if there was any writing on them, thinking of all those who had looked at them before me. Right up with this feeling was the handling of letters and my Aunt's journals. It's as if I could re-touch family members deceased through the pictures, letters, and journals. The nostalgia cloaked me with love when sifting through the pictures, holding each one in my hand and remembering. The biography is now complete and published. It's an amazing story and there are pictures, journal excerpts, and even conversations from the tapes that were transcribed (like when my sister was born and my Dad got the other four kids' reactions and my Mom talked to my Grandparents right after the birth). This is a long winded way to say that I prefer, much prefer, holding and looking through actual photographs to looking at the pictures printed in a book. If they are in a photo album, you can still take them out, look at the back, handle them, scan them, kiss the faces of your loved ones, hold them next to your heart. It's just not quite the same, for me, when it's a picture printed on a page of a book.