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First, don't let the megapixels overwhelm you. With a 3 MP camera you can make 8x10's of pretty good quality. With a 4 MP camera you could make 11x14's. So unless you're going to be making a lot of larger prints, you don't need more MP.
Regarding Zoom: Only look at the Optical Zoom number. It will say something like "3x" that means "3 times" which means you can zoom in 3 times more at the end of the zoom from the widest portion of the lens.
Digital Zoom is all bad. It makes for poor quality prints, so don't even consider it. The way that it works is that once you have used up all of your optical zoom, the digital zoom starts to zoom in on what the sensor sees. In the process of interpolating it causes some poor quality images.
If you have one camera that says it has 4x optical and 3x digital and another that says 3x optical and 4x digital, they both aren't equally good 12x cameras. You want to get the one with the most optical zoom if it comes down to it.
Also, go to a local camera store (not best buy, but a real camera store) and get them to show you the cameras in your price range and how they work. Hold them and see if you like how they feel.
Budget for a memory card and batteries if the camera doesn't already come with rechargeables. You should figure that for a 3-4 MP camera you'll want 256 MB of memory. For 5 MP more like 512. For 6 MP a gig.
Hope that helps some for now. I'll write more again later.
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mint
justapooper
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