I would stick with cannon. Look at the compact cannon's with 5mp. check out B&H photo on-line. great options. Good luck.

Check out http://www.dpreview.com. This site gives comprehensive reviews of all sorts of cameras. I have found it very helpful in the past.

Hey, Barrett: Canons get good reviews in Consumer Reports - if you can find a copy in the library it really helps winnow out the myriad differences in features. I just got an Olympus SP-310. Its small and versatile. They have them at Office Max if you want to look, but they're prob. cheaper online through Amazon, etc.

Ezra and I recently purchased a Kodak EasyShare Z740. It's 5 megapixels, with a 10X optical zoom and all sorts of other fun gadgets. It's not too heavy or large and fits rather well into a coat pocket.

It also takes amazing photos - Ezra has gotten some really great photos of the lake and other nature shots as well as taking much cuter shots of the Creepy Niece Baby. It has presets but it also has manual control.

It's also really easy to load photos from the camera to the computer.

We got ours at Target.

Good luck!

I have a Sony Cybershot SDC-P100. Good for a basic point and shoot, but manual control if you want it.
There's also something to be said about a real glass lens as opposed to plastic. Mine has a Carl Zeiss lens, I think Kodak has glass ones as well.
Definatly check out company reviews. If a company puts out crappy products that are returned for repair a lot, they'll get a reputation.

ZB and I have a Sony that works nicely for us. Smallish and fairly versatile.

Kodaks seem to take suprisingly good photos, but we had software issues at work with the Macs: you shouldn't need to install the Kodak software (you should be able to run it like a disc), but computers wouldn't recognise it without it. Annoying. Plus, I always hate the features they put on things to make them easy for morons (for example, the "share" button), and Kodak loves these.

I'm totally in love with my sony cybershot p200. You should come up and have a look at it if you want. It has an auto setting, 2 manual control settings(each of a varying degee--one complete manual and one with a few settings you can change), and a setting with 9 presets according to conditions. It takes movies too and it has 7.2 megapixels.....incase you ever want to blow up one of your pictures. 2'' screen, good reviews, and I can change mine to a 30 second shutter speed.

I have a canon power shot A510 or something like that. 3.something megapixels.

It's great for what I need it for, I also have access to a hi-end Canon (like the one Mr. Starfire just got) and many time opt to use my little Canon because it's easier, and the lens is wider.

It's got plenty of manual controls, my only complaint is that they're pretty clunky to access.

From what I read before buying it, Canons get great reviews for the cost vs. quality ratio.

the Kodak Easy Share Z series is fantastic, and takes great pictures for the price they cost.

Thanks everyone. I've been reading reviews but none of them tell me what I really want to know -- how good are the pictures. I want to see 'em.

Anyway, I'll prolly stick with Canon, since it will be familiar to me and people seem to like them.

I've got a Nikon Coolpix 950, it's 5 years old and only 2 megapixels but it takes sharp, clear and lovely pix, so Nikon might be a good brand to consider.

I've also heard good things about Lumix cameras (made by Panasonic). Here's a link for a review:

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001055.php

st v

Sony DSC-717 is good... or whatever the updated one is. It's not a digital SLR, and it has some manual control to it, and can change shutter speed, etc etc. I had the 717 before I got my digital rebel and it was great.

I use a Minolta DiMage Z1 camera. GREAT lil cam.

Get one at www.refurbdepot.com for a steal. Maybe even get a Z3, if I remember right, it has Anti-shake built in.