after a lot of research I bought one of the cool new sony T1s.One must get at least a 5 meapixel digital to eaqual a SLR cmaera and the best pictures are taken by SLR cameras with velvia slide film.I took slides my whole life but sometimes the film was ruined by xrays ,crappy processing etc.this little camera has 3x zoom and is the size of a credit card thicker (of course)and has great custom features .I took pictues in my garden of flowers and blew them up to 8x10 on my canon and they are awesome I mean professional looking and I am going to frame them.this camera takes video clips also and is going to be ideal for travel as We are sick of dragging camera junk.try this site to review cameras..http://www.imaging-resource.com/IMCOMP/COMPS01.HTM

this camera has 5 mixalpic and carl zeiss lens equivalet to a F38-114 mm.I got it on froogle for a little over 400$ and bought an extra lith battery and 512 memory and im ready for anything