It is a proverbial minefield these days trying to buy a digital camera which suits everyones taste, reason for purchasing and use. I have been buying and selling digitals mostly for the last 6 years - a lot from ebay - to try and find one which suits me - an impossible task it seems!!  After my first digital I purchased from a bargain bucket in a camera shop in Ipswich (Suffolk), a Casio 640 x 480 pixel swivel lens camera (I can't recall the model) but because you could instantly see what you had taken I was smitten. No more film camera for me - this was it.

I have spent rather too much money (as my long suffering wife will confirm) trying to get something that will take a picture that reasonably resembles what you could get on film (from even a cheap compact) has been an impossible task which has still to be aimed for but I doubt will actually happen.

These days whatever you buy is obsolete as soon as you take it out of the shop, will be lucky to outlast  the guarantee - and this ever increasing need for face detection, smile detection, blink detection, anti-shake etc is all so pointless to me!!  What did we do in the old days? We used fast fim and /or a tripod!! (or just guess)

I find that most cameras over about 6 megapixels suffer so much with noise as the pixels are so much smaller than say a 4 megapixel sensor - the smaller pixels pick up less light so they have to "wind up" the amplifiers to compensate which means noise, they then try and remove it with noise reduction so reducing the quality (much like the old cassette decks remember them ?)

Therefore do not bother with anything more than 6 megapixels max, the pictures are no better than a good 4, 5 or 6 megapixel camera of some years ago (this is where ebay comes in, try to find a shop that sells older digitals cheap!!)

I read the camera reviews regularly and have to laugh - nothing has really improved in the digital field in the last 3 years - its all about shifting boxes these days.

As for phone cameras - a pinhole camera would be sharper. Worse than useless like an ashtray on a motorbike or a chocolate teapot.

Remember when buying  a digital  camera in any shop, avoid anything less than £50.00  - its a waste of money,

High megapixel counts do not mean better pictures.

The make does not matter, they are probably all made in the same factory in China.

Don't buy the first thing you see it will be a mistake, think about what you want it for first.

If you want to take pictures buy a camera not a phone. (but keep it with you for that grab shot as an out of focus grainy blur is better than nothing I suppose!!).

Lastly its not the camera that takes the picture its the person behind it!!

My latest camera which believe it or not I've had for nearly 3 months (a record for me)-  is the Nikon D40 at 6 megapixels. It is more than enough to get a great picture. It is small and light, has a large 2.5" screen which is easy to read and can use practically any Nikon lens (but in manual focus mode)... .you will only get AF with the AFS lenses or newer. This is another ebay purchase - bought faulty  - but soon repaired as Nikon are very good for spare parts - (unlike most, especially Fuji). I hope to have many more months of happy snapping with this - its the longest I've kept any camera for so far!!

Hope you have  enjoyed my rantings.

DIGIMAAN