Looking for a good digital camera…

Go for a well known make for instance kodak or cannon, with an optical zoom. These give the best pictures as this is what they have staked their whole businesses on rather than other makes such as samsung or panasonic.

Any camera from these makes will be great for what you want so you may well be able to get something to suit your needs for much less than your budget. I bought my kodak for £115 which is about $200 and it takes fantastic pictures. Kodak pictures are clearer and more natural when it comes to the actual colouration so you post production with them, cannon tend to saturate the images so the colours of the pictures are naturally more colourful and zingier immediately but you can do less with them in post production.

Good luck and I hope this helps

I'm happy with my Olympus FE-46. It's a point & shoot with some tweaking options for lighting & scene if you want to take it off 'auto' If you're not comfortable with choosing settings, then auto does a pretty good job of deciding. Go for the most optical zoom (not digital) because it truly brings you closer to the action. Digital zoom just magnifies the pixels in the picture and it can look fuzzy or grainy. I wouldn't be happy with less than 10MP and my Olympus has 12MP with 5x optical zoom. I wish I could combine some settings from the different scenarios offered, but some are preset and you can't change whether you get the anti-shake with it or not. I also looked at the GE W1250 12MP which is similar. Both of these cameras are under $130. If you're not familiar with digital cameras, these will allow you to grow a bit, and you can continue to save the balance of what you've budgeted & splurge on a 'bigger & better' model when you are more comfortable and want more control over the process.

You can get a lot of very nice cameras for far less than that. IF you are a point and shoot kind of person, I would suggest hopping over to your local electronics store and checking out the cameras by Sony, Kodak and Fuji. Go for a very basic (low cost) model to start. For around the house stuff, it is really hard to go wrong these days as long as you stick to a major brand and stick with the low end. Be sure not to be seduced by the stylish expensive cameras or those that have so many settings that it is hard to figure out even how to take a photo.

Good luck!

I suggest you save a lot of money and aggravation. Any point and shoot digital camera with more than three megapixels should be fine for anything you want to do. I got a nice camera with 10 mega pixels and so many options that I take terrible pictures. My friends all have much cheaper cameras yet their pictures come out much better. My last suggestion would be to go on Amazon.com and read the reviews of cameras you are interested in or do a Google search for camera reviews. One other thing you might want to consider, TigerDirect.com has some very good deals and some of the best customer service I have ever seen. You can also find product reviews on their website.

I bought Sony Cyber-Shot W290 before NY. This compact camera is fully automatic you have not to set ISO or exposure to get photos of high quality. It also can take a video in Full-HD.