SHA01, I have a Hewlett Packard 315. I paid about $200 for it. It was an in-the-bag-demo. I didn't want to pay a whole lot for a camera because I do a lot of boating and the camera was just for pix of fish on the boat. I didn't want to have to worry about loosing a $1000 camera in the drink. Takes great close up pix but far away and digital zoom leave a little to be desired.
You can pay as much as $2000 for the latest-and-greatest or right around $200-300 for a camera that will take a lot of nice close up pix of you and all of the fish you will catch. A camera in the $500 range is considered middle of the road.
My recommendation is go to a store that has a lot of cameras to offer and compare (Circuit City or Best Buy). The more megapixels and bigger the memory card (at least 16MB) the merrier.

Hope this helps. cool
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Carl C.