recommended cameras

Something from Casio EXLIM S line. With $100-$200, probably a S100. Great cameras, good quality for the price, and excellent battery life.

Ignore megapixels. At your price range, you'll probably get a better idea of quality from online reviews from sites like dpreview.com.

 

give us a little more detail.
are there any features you can't live without? Night shooting, for example?

to spend that little on a camera, you are definitely skimping on probably a lot of features you may feel come in handy later on.

your best bet is to check www.cnet.com and see their digicam reviews. Not only do they have pretty accurate ratings, but you can filter based on price, and then based on megapixel and by brand, if you wish.

good luck!

 

Try the Olympus µ digital 600 (aka stylus 600).

A very nice, compact, weather proof and cheap camera (even cheaper after the 700 came out, you should get it well in your price range). Large LCD. Excellent at focusing in difficult light. I'm very happy with mine, and my girlfriend got the same camera after trying mine.

Looks great, too:

 

One word of advice, though. If you do end up steering towards a more expensive camera, don't do as one of my friends did and spend $400+ for a Digital Elph or a similarly priced camera with a small form factor and little functionality when Nikon's entry semi-pro DSLR is available for similar pricing.

I have a D50 with the standard hybrid lens (got a very good deal on it at Amazon) and I absolutely love it. SLR cameras are just so much more versatile than point and shoot. Not only that, but the lens/filter options are far higher. Wait until you have to get conversion kits and such.

 

This looks a lot like my mom's Kodak camera. Which has been serviced at least twice since she bought it less than six months ago.

Does the stylus use SD cards for picture storage?

 

No, XD.

Oh. I forgot the biggest advantage with the camera: The battery life is awsome! Just awesome. I've actually just recharged it two or three times since Christmas!

 

less widely accepted. My Dell 2407 monitor (which is amazing!) accepts a variety of cards (SM/SD/MS/MMC/CF), which is a big determining factor in any additional cam purchases.

 

Accepted?!? Why does that matter? I've never actually taken my card out. I just connect the camera to my iBook and lately MacBook with the USB cord that came with it.

 

Same here. I'm not sure if looking at card types is going to matter too much; I rarely put my cards into the CF reader. I just hook my camera up to the computer.

Apart from that (don't quote me on this though), I think the vast majority of cameras (Apart from Sony) use SD and CF, with SD used in most compact cameras. (I actually didn't know that XD was a type of card - I thought that mitthrawnuruodo was making the 'XD' anime-style face.)

 

I wasn't knocking Canon. Just saying with the Digital Elph, you are paying for the extremely small size, not necessarily for the best features.

I can explain in detail the difference between Canon and Nikon CCDs, but it's boring and no one will care. As far as SLRs, it's a choice of preference mostly. Canon higher MP, Nikon better rasterizing (generally), and in my opinion, Nikon lenses are preferable.

 

I have multiple cards. I rarely ever connect USB. Fill one card, put another in, and then when I get home, I only download the finished card. Guess it's not such an amateur desired feature, though.

My bad.

 

Canon makes good compact cameras, but a couple models had problems with LCDs cracking. It's only a small portion, but they were part of a popular line, and it doesn't hurt to check.

I still think that no one can go wrong with a Casio, though. Every compact camera I've seen from them is of exceptional quality and at a good price.