Digital Camera

Panasonic DMC-FZ series. I have an FZ5, it's 5MP, 12x optical zoom, electronic viewfinder, good LCD, great macro mode, and lots of options and settings. Uses SD cards and has a Li-on battery. Read a few reviews on Steve's Digicams and DPReview.

I have Canon a95 camera:

5mpx, 3x zoom, turning LCD screen, allot of features on-board, and macro from within 5 cm.

The camera is great I like that it uses 4 AA . I am using 2300 or 2600 mAh batteries for that, roughly I can shoot a whole day without changing batteries.
The LCD screen is little small, but I have no real problems with that. I also like the amount of features it has.

You can check it out some photos I made with it:

foto.mail.ru

I'm not big on photography, but I really have to throw in a good word for my HP Photosmart R607. I'd suggest you consider it as a good low-end option. It's 4.1MP, but it's only got 3x optical zoom, which may not be enough for you. At any rate, it's very affordable, very durable (it feels solid in your hands, if you know what I mean), and it's got lots of options for precise control over the picture you're taking. It's got options for fstop and all that, but it's also got options like choosing whether the auto exposure (which you can of course turn off) calculates the exposure from the center of the shot or the weighted average of the entire picture, you can set timers, take pictures in burst mode, and lots of other things I haven't fiddled with. The best thing about this camera is really the internal software. It's very neat and powerful.

At any rate, it's RRP is around $250 google tells me, which is really a bargain IMO for what this camera is, especially when compared with others I looked at which were more expensive but not nearly as powerful. It might be worth reading some reviews and seeing what you think. They could give you a better idea of what this camera can and can't do, and what are its strengths and drawbacks than I can.

*throws in vote for Canon Powershot*
I've got the Powershot S50, so 5MP, 3x optical zoom (up to 15x with digital), decent macro (not sure of range), and (most importantly) the ability to lock off each and every function and option manually.

I'd recommend not getting an HP camera.
Their customer service people are just evil and they will screw you over.

Thanks a lot everyone!

I took approximately 1800 photos last month with my current digital camera... It took me a *long* time to research which camera was right for my personal needs and I feel I made the perfect choose.. However this might not suit YOUR needs, whether it does or not I can say it is a great camera for anyone who is an intermediate photographer.

My camera is a Kodak EasyShare DX7440. I love the build quality; the way it feels in my hand (I'm an adult male) and the way it looks (not important). But more importantly than all of that I love the feature set and the quality of the photos it produces...

My camera has a 4.0-megapixel CCD lens but you can buy its big brother, the Kodak EasyShare DX7630 which has a 6.2-megapixel CCD lens (but not much else added).

The DX7440 has a 4x optical zoom lens and a whole bucket load of pre-set exposures, but also allows the user to set their own for a particular occasion (handy) and has the de facto automatic, burst and video modes...

It has a 2.2" display which not many cameras can compete with, however this display can be hard to see in bright sunlight sometimes and you end up using the manual sight -- this is a general problem with these displays.

It uses Li-Ion rechargeable batteries which seems like a drawback if you need to replace it or buy more but I was able to take well over 500 pictures *using* the screen before I had to shove another one in and charge the original battery up.. I'd like to see an AA or AAA beat that.

I could go on all day about how much I love this camera and just how much I hate its predecessor but really you need to do your own research.. What features do you need? How many photos do you take? And how much money have you got to spend?