I just purchased an Olympus Camedia C-5500 Sport Zoom, 5.1 mega pixels, 5x optical zoom (plus another 4x of digital zoom), it has a macro and super macro feature for very close details. It has a USB cable, so no need for anything else to download. It also has a very large LCD at 2" and runs off of 4 AA batteries, for which I got a recharger. It is not too heavy but big enough that it won't slip out of your hands. The memory is an xD card (you can get up to 1 gig now and it seems to be the media of the future (they expect it will surpass 8 gig or more) and it has a lot of features. The best part? I got it online for only $230 (approximately and way below msr price!). By the time I added extras (camera bag, charger, a couple sets of batteries), I am almost at $400. Consumer Reports gave it a super high color accuracy, and the image quality is outstanding. I could blow an image up to 11 x 14 or larger using this camera, which really seems to be just fine for nearly all purposes. The format is jpg, however.

I used Consumer Reports and http://www.imaging-resource.com/ which has excellent reviews on cameras and accessories - detailed but easy to understand (that's how I chose the Powerex recharger and Engergizer batteries). This was a consumer reports best buy, and the mega pixels and zoom was unusually high for cameras of this price. I have a Cannon at home, but I talked with a number of camera stores and they said that Olympus is often overlooked by people who pay for the "name" of Cannon, Nikon, etc. Olympus is not an off-brand, but for some reason a lot of people consider it one. I got a lot of product for a little bit of money, I think.

Just because you have $900 to spend, doesn't mean that you really need to spend it all (and don't forget the accessories) to get high quality images. Just a thought for those who might have a smaller budget or who want their $$$ to go a bit further. Our first digital camera purchase several years ago was about $900, but you can get a lot more for less than that now.