Be prepared to spend some money.
The camera was (then), $499.00, plus $129.00 for a 256 memory card (much cheaper now), plus a starter kit (camera case, charger and batteries, then an extra set of batteries etc, etc.
Doesn't take long to reach 6 or 7 hundred dollars.
Of course you never again have to buy film, just recharge your batteries for pennies.
I have a Canon Powershot S70 3.2 Meg.
Have used it for about 1 1/2 years now.
Only complaint, lag time for "shutter", have missed a lot of good shots because of that. I have a idea/hunch that if I sprang for some of the high priced higher speed memory cards like the pros use, I could improve on that, at least to the limits of the camera's abilties.
It's a bit quicker in "action" mode, but that only works well in daylight.
Other than that it's perfect. Good lense, good colour balance, full auto or any degree of manual control, fits in a pocket etc.
With a 256 meg memory card I can take 275 High res pictures, good enough to blow up to 8x10. (How often do I do that?) The big advantage to using high res, is the ability to crop and enlarge the subject without losing quality. The downside is the storage space. Had to get a bigger hard drive. :-(
A big plus is the AA batteries it uses. I always have a spare set charging, (NMHD). Should I get caught with no charged batteries, and it's an important event like a wedding, I can always go into the nearest drugstore or convenience store and buy 4 AAs. Can't do that with special batteries that only fit a particular brand of camera.
I got tired too, of buying 2 sets of chargers for everything, Palm Pilot, camera, cell phone, etc., so I bought a 200 amp power converter from Canadian Tire with 2 outlets. Now I can take any 110 V. household charger with me, and plug it in to the converter in the car, (or soon the Burger), or take them into the motel/hotel when traveling etc.
For printing, I settled on an Epson 6 colour Photo RX500. I figured if the Epson print line was good enough for the Boston Museum of Fine Art to reproduce paintings with, then it would do for me. Course, theirs probably cost a little more than mine did
Printed some 4x6 test prints, then sent the same ones by email to a photo finisher for comparison. To the naked eye they look indentical, under a magnifying glass, the finisher wins. A $350.00 printer versus a 3 million dollar machine! Acceptable. Anything really special that I want to enlarge and print, I'll send it out. For the rest, I'll print my own.
Had a Canon S600 printer before that, and it was very good too, but I wanted a 3 in 1 printer, with a flatbed scanner and copier. (Also can scan and print from negatives and slides)
Funny thing.
When the camera was new, I bought all the available accessories, 2 power teleconverter, clip on 2x viewfinder etc because I reasoned they would be hard to find after a while.
Have barely used them!
As mentioned in other posts, what is too much bother to carry around, doesn't get carried around.
That includes big bulky cameras, like my beloved Pentax Spotmatic F with every imaginable lense and accessory.
Takes beautiful pictures, but is rarely with me when I need it.
With Digital, smaller is better, usually! :wink
As long as you don't lose it somehwere.
Hope this helps.
Sorry about the "War and Peace" length of this post.
