DC (relatively good one) for a newbie

[imaginary_number]

Hi everyone,

I'm a newbie and I guess I need some help deciding on which camera to get. I've no prior experience in the area of photography (except for the usual family photos, etc.).
I've seen the pictures posted in this forum as well as pictures from dpreview and I kinda wished I could take pictures like that as well.
Anyway, I've done some reading so I guess I should get a camera of at least 2.1 MP. (btw, is the diff betw 3.3 MP & 2.1 MP significant?)
I have a budget of about $800 so any recommendations?

Thanx in advance.

 

[Jayan]

2.1MP is enuff for quality prints up to 6R, though u can get pretty decent 8R prints too.

If ur main concern is taking pix for frens & family, with the occasional need to take pix on tours....then I would recommend the fully-automatic but flexible (though not much manual controls) point-n-shoot DCs with zoom lens.

The more commonly used PnS r the:

Fujifilm FinePix 2800 Zoom (6x zoom, 2.1MP, $650)
Fujifilm FinePix 2600 Zoom (3x zoom, 2.1MP, $500)
Canon A20 (3x zoom, 2.1MP, $580)
Nikon CoolPix 775 (3x zoom, 2.1MP, $600)

But if u want a DC wif full manual controls (wif full-auto options) to do all those neat tricks u mentioned....wif ur budget, I would recommend these:

Casio 2900UX (8x zoom, 2.1MP, $700)
Olympus C-2040z (3x zoom, 2.1MP, $750)
Olympus C-3020z (3x zoom, 3.3MP, $850...slightly out of ur budget)

Prices given r estimates of current mkt price n should be used as a reference only....call up the retailers for quotes.