I've got several Nikon Coolpix 2100 and one Nikon Coolpix 3100 in service at work and I really am impressed with the bang for the buck.

My old Kodak (240?) had at least one undocumented feature that I wish these later generation cameras have: It corrected orientation of the picture automatically (must have had an accelerometer in it) Unfortunately, after thousands of pics, the autofocus went out. It was a battery hog anyway - which is a great feature of newer cameras like the Coolpix - Just 2 AA's and they are good to go. I use 1800mah or 1600mah NiMh batteries for all the cameras. One thing we noticed on all the Nikons is that the first set of batteries got used up pretty fast - my guess is that an on-board rechargeable has to spool up the first time you drop batteries in the new camera. Subsequent charges have taken mondo pictures. Every single Coolpix camera exhibited this "draining" first use. (No, they were not new batteries - the Coolpix replaced earlier makes and models and I took care to select cameras that use the same batteries and memory)

Which brings up a point - if I was starting out from scratch, I would choose a camera that uses SD/MMC like my Palm instead of CF memory. But since I already had a large investment in CF at work and personally...

While I like the small size of the Nikon Coolpix series, they are not quite ergonomically right for me - I still find it difficult to keep the camera level in either orientation - there is always a bit of tilt in the picture. The Canon Powershot series, with a familiar form factor (35mm automatic camera-like) do not exhibit this problem. IIRC, I have 3 A70's in service at work and they take good pics as well.

It's not just size. I have used a tiny Olympus 35mm for many years that takes stunning photographs with no tilt - it's even smaller than the Coolpix. Dunno what it is - maybe just me.

Oh - the ability to fairly quickly choose modes (scenes) in the Coolpix series is really worth learning to use - they really work well.

HTH,

Tom