I am thinking about buying a digital camera for the first time and would like some help on choosing the right one. I love to take pictures of my dogs and any other animal that catches my eye. What is an easy to use digital camera? Easy to hook up to the computer. What kind of programs do i need to be able to use a dig. cam on my computer?

Greetings.... Well I started out with a Sony Mavica that uses a floppy disk, and quickly fount out that it was not fur me...
Starting out, I would suggest something like a Kodak 215...It uses a "Flash Card" that can be used over and over again... The 215 is user friendly and takes really great pictures...Its a 1.3 pixel camera....The Kodak Imaging program is good and easy to use...( NO, I do not work for Kodak )...One of my cameras is a 210 ( basically the same as the 215).. and it is a real dandy...
Are you going to do your own printing ??? Hope so, its a big bunchafun...Any other questions, feel free to call me...Don

I have an HP Photosmart 318 and I love it. It has 2.3 Megapixel resolution and 2x digital zoom. I got mine on sale for $130 in December, but they are usually $199. I paid around $60 for a 128mb flash card, bought some rechargable NiMH and I was set. With that particular card, you can store a whopping 145 of the full sized, 1792x1200 pictures on the camera, or tons more pictures if you decrease the resolution to the next lowest setting. This is a fine camera, and my only beef is how quick it drains the batteries, but that's just typical for a digicam.
All the software you'll need comes with the camera. All you need to upload the pictures is a free USB port. Plug the cable into the camera, the port, turn camera on, and it automatically starts the picture loading application.

I many not be too helpful here, but a lot of the cheaper cameras do not have very good resolution. It comes with software for your computer, as I believe they all do for downloading your pictures. I have an Olympus. I love it. It is so loaded with features that I think that you would need a three credit hour course to really utilize all this stuff. I managed to figure out the basics of what I wanted. I would suggest going to the library and copy the latest article from Consumer Reports on digital cameras. I have found that magazine to be an excellent resource explaining features and making recommendations. I would look for high resolution and a zoom lens (close ups of pets and people always look better). I like the self timer for group shots with my kids also. The viewer on the back is great in case the picture didn't turn out right, you can easily take it over again. Buy quality, which isn't always reflective of price. Even though I am no great photographer, I think you will love a digital camera anyway. I have a 35mm and an APS that I now seldom use. I don't think you will ever regret going digital.

The best way that I have found to get a great quality copy of your picture is to upload to WalMart's site. I think it's about 25 cents a print. It gets pretty expensive buying a printer that will do your pictures justice, ink, and good paper printing your own pictures. For copies or making a scrapbook, a decent printer works fine though.

Go to WWW.CNET.COM. There you will be able to compare cameras and get user reviews. Which I believe are very important when purchasing any electronic equipment. Smile

Thanks so much for all your input on this. I will mostly use it for email because my family lives thousands of miles away. But I might print the ones I love. I love taking pictures of my two dogs and a roll of film usually only has about 3 or 4 good pics on it and that's it. With a dig. cam i can preview and decide what i want to keep or print. That is the main reason I would love a dig cam. I will definately check out the site you recomended . Thanks again for all the help !!

I don't know if this will help or not, but here's my 2 cents worth:

I don't really care for high resolution shots or fancy equipment; I've found it to be a waste of money unless you're going into professional photography.

I recently published a cruise book for my ship (96 pages, hardbound, and about 95% of the material was from photos). Our staff used nothing more than 35mm photos donated from members of the crew (many of the photos were pretty bad!), a scanner, and a pc with Photoshop Professional loaded (this is about a $600 piece of software--you could use a cheaper version, like Photoshop Elements, you just won't be able to publish anything with it).

Photoshop is your key to success. No other photo software is like it. It's really easy to manipulate photos to make them brighter, sharper, bigger, smaller, whatever you want. You can also reduce the resolution for internet ready photos. (I hope it doesn't sound like I'm spreading a new religion, I just really like this stuff!)

Anyway, we were able to put together a really nice publication with a lot of really amateur stuff. It's really surprising how easy it is.

If you have a digital camera, you've done nothing more than eliminate your need for a scanner because you just download your photos from the camera. Photoshop will handle a lot of different photo formats, and you can reformat them for emailing or publishing. The biggest drawback to having a digital camera is that when your photos are permenantly digital. If you want hard copies, you have to think about investing in some expensive stuff to print them out. (You'll either need to have them done professionally or get a printer with a photo cartridge and photo paper, as well as the more expensive version of the software.)

The HP 715 with 3.3mp about $350 is much better but being discontinued and the 720 not quite available yet ewverywhere!