The digital cameras available now is nothing short of amazing. You can do quite well with just about any of them...but I will give my preferences anyway.

I have two digital cameras that are my current choices.

My most recent is a Canon G9. This is a compact high-end point and shoot. It easily fits my shirt pocket (large shirt pocket) and has all the controls that I require in a camera. It has a very good lens, 6x optical zoom, excellent user interface and takes great images. It is quite expensive as point and shoots go, but in my view well worth the cost.

My main camera is a Nikon D200. It is a DSLR and uses all the lenses I have collected for my Nikon bodies for the past 3 decades. It is an exceptional camera in my view...now supplanted by the D300. For a DSLR I choose to keep within my system as the lenses are the most valuable thing.

I am more than happy with both of these digital cameras. I highly recommend the Cannon series of point and shoots as they seem to have a very easily mastered user interface. I started with a Canon S330 and found it to be a great little camera but lacking some controls that I have to have. I also have a Nikon 8800, again a nice camera but not nearly as convienient as the G9.

You can do quite well with just about any Nikon or Canon in my view. There are simply too many to choose from. You can spend hours reading about cameras at such sites as dpreview.

http://www.dpreview.com/

It is daunting to choose, but make a list of your absolute needs and then we can help sort out a few good choices.

Even narrowing down the format helps....P&S vs DSLR. About the only thing I would avoid now is a film camera....as much as it pains me to say it, digital is the way to go.


Over at JM's Outdoors magazine I have a few articles on my camera support gear. I have not written anything specific on the cameras themselves because the articles would go out of date almost before I could put them up.

http://www.outdoors-magazine.com/spip.php?rubrique27

These will give you a view of some of my equipment though and they do discuss some of the details of how I have set myself up.

Cameras are only the beginning....

Good luck, it is a fun hobby.

Here is Castle Geyser in Yellowstone Park....from my D200 with 12-24 f4 lens.