This is in response to the email you sent.
Anyways, a lot of other folks have chimmed in since you sent the email with some good advice. I still maintain you have to decide who you are and which camera fits you.
You continue to discuss zoom, which makes me think that you need to look at cameras with image stablizers so you can go past the 3-4x of the canon models you talk about. I believe Sony, Panasonic and olympus all have cameras with 8-12x zoom. I hear they are good cameras, some of them having lower res, but the arguement I have seen is that they can zoom in so close the res isn't as significant. There is a lot of logic to that. Either that or you are looking at a Canon SLR with a zoom lens, but then you are talking about more money.
And, in my opinion, the great thing about digital photography is that you can basically take "free" pictures (that and storage, and making copies). I have gone through 500 pictures in 2 months and it hasn't cost me a cent. But I am learning about photography (playing with manual controls), learning to do action shots, and love to take pictures. If you are only going to take 100-200 pictures a year, where you are just snapping pictures but want high quality, then film may be the way to go. You can get good zoom, more durable cameras for less up front money, but you pay in film and developing costs. But if those aren't significant, film is still the way to go.
FYI, I have heard that your average 35 mm film is equiv. to 80 MP, it is just that the human eye can't really differentiate greater than 150 dpi. This gets complex, but basically 2 MP on a 8x10 is about 150 dpi, thus pulling off your basic resolution needed (human eye won't see pixels). Where greater than 2 MP is needed is when more the pixels are strung together in lines or clusters with shadows, and in making thinks look "sharp." Long story short, film still offers the greatest quality.
But if you are going to snap a lot of pictures, want to learn about photography, a digicam is a great way to go. I have an S45 and love it and am thinking (once I have more money) of getting a digital SLR. But if you just want a good camera that can do a lot, with great zoom, you might want to consider film.
I'm having the hardest time trying to figure out which camera is
best for me. I have read your reviews over and over again as well
as visited the forums, but stillc an't decide. I do know what I
want in a camera, but there are so many choices it boggles my
mind. Some features I know I want in a camera are:
rechargeable battery
long battery life
large memory size to hold many pictures while traveling (no access
to a computer)
USB plug and download support
Good resolution, at least 2-3 megapixel with ability to take small
pics (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768) as well as the larger resolutions
Not too large but not too small so you can't even grip it.
Automatic flash and automatic image brightness since I'm not good
with that part of picture taking
Good Zoom capability to zoom in on small objects within a large view.
Thanks for any help.
