digital camera question.....

okay, i know this question has been asked before...because i did a topic search, though several of the topics were serveral months, if not years old, which means its likely the advice given would, at this point, given how much these fuckers advance in a short amount of time, be outdated.

that said, after years of putting it off, like everything else modern, ive decided i need to get a digital camera. so i need some general advice here. recommend me a good one. i know fuck-all about these things.

a few notes:

1. is it possible for me to get anything worth having for around 160-175 or am i looking at at least 200-250 to get something that isnt a total piece of shit?

2. i dont need any professional quality here, just a decent camera that wont make shit look all pixelated.

3. ive looked at a few. what do these numbers (3.9, 4.2, 5.0) with resolution mean in english? i understand the higher the number, the better, but how low a number is crap?

thanks.

3, 4 or 5 megapixels will be more than adequate for point and shoot type photography that you're likely to do... there are numbers of canon, minolta, nikon cameras around in your price bracket.. there was recently a thread in the photographers group, here, where a number of cameras in your price range were mentioned.. dpreview.com is a good place to find camera recomendations, check the forums over there for very specific info..

good luck..

3 megapixels is plenty. You'll end up having to scale down and crop your picutres down to a more reasonable size anyways. Ignore digital zoom, it's worthless (just combines pixels, making the picture blocky). What you want to look for is optical zoom, don't count on getting much of that in that price range.

If I were you, I'd look for a decent camera that's nearing the end of its product cycle and is going for less because something else has replaced it.

The lower the megapixels the cheaper.

you need to join the photography group