OK folks, about to go to England for 8 days and about to become a father. Time for a new digital camera! I haven't bought a new one in quite some time. Here is what I want. A decent sized display, zoom features, speed, good battery or power use, a decent amount of built in storage, not too expensive but will be willing to spend a little extra for the right one. I want to be able to use it for up close shots and scenic shots. Any tips or suggestions? Thanks all.
I'm not sure if it still is, but at one time Steve's Digicams was the best site on the net for that sort of research.
First off, forget built in storage. Most cameras come with minimal, if any, built in storage and whatever removable media that comes with the camera will not be enough in most cases. But that's a good thing, because you can shop elsewhere for the media and you have the flexibility to get as much or as little as you need. Plus, with a removable disk, you can put it in a printer or take it to a photo lab and get a print easily. Also, since you want to be able to do scenic and closeup, be open to the idea of getting lens adapters. With some cameras, you need to get an adapter, but for some brands (my Kodak, for example) it's not terribly expensive, like $20. Some are more expensive. Now, in addition to Steve's Digicam that Mike mentioned, check out http://www.dcresource.com/ and CNet. Also, it's important to go to your local Best Buy or Apple Store so you can actually touch and play around with the cameras. When you're finally ready to spend that money, go to http://pricegrabber.com, http://dealcam.com/ and http://www.resellerratings.com/ to make sure you're getting the best deal possible. For my next camera, I'm considering one of the mid-higher end Konica Minolta - it has a large screen, decent optical zoom (as opposed to digital, which is meaningless). But the biggest key for me is the Anti-Shake feature, which is really useful in dim or dark settings since I hate how pictures come out when you use flash.
I'll tack on two more sites to the ones mentioned: http://www.dpreview.com/ Highly detailed reviews of high and low-end cameras http://photo.net/equipment/digital/ The best overall photography resource online I second what was said about trying to use the camera in a store before buying it online, as well as getting one with external lens capabilities.
A friend of mine recently bought this one: That's the Canon EOS 350D (Digital Rebel XT). Not sure how it compares to the ones you were looking at, but the reviews have been very good as well. Although you can't go wrong with Minolta either. I've been playing around with my dad's Minolta from the mid 70s. Needs some work though.
I'm not quite ready to take the SLR plunge yet. There's still a price gap between consumer models and low-end SLRs, and that's before getting the lens. I think I was considering the Minolta Z-2 (not certain though). I'm looking for a camera I can do both wide and zoom, switch easily between auto and manual, and has some feature to compensate for low light (i.e. Anti-Shake). -- More advise: Another thing you should consider is an extra battery. And if it uses regular Alkaline batteries, you should get a couple of sets of rechargeable AAs. There are few things worse than getting the low battery symbol and you're in middle of nowhere. And with the removable disk, it never hurts to have more storage. I have a 1GB disk, which is total overkill but it's nice knowing that I can go on a week vacation, take 100s of pictures and don't have to download my pictures onto a computer.