honestly go to comsumerreports.com and then search the web for the best price. i have a sony cybershot (but it was almost $600 including all the accesories) but my first camera was a casio exilim (sp?) they have some now that are cheaper and i think theyre undre $200. MAKE SURE that when you buy one it has a REAL anti-shake on it..especially once you have your little girl and shes doing something really cute and you want to snap a quick pic..cuz it may only happen once and you wouldnt want it to be blurry! but thats my advice. i love cameras and have done alot of research into them. oh and you really dont honestly need anything bigger then a 7 or 8 megapixel..anything bigger is for making larger pictures (like bigger then 8 X 10) Good Luck!

I have a kodak easyshare and I absolutely love it. It is 5.1 megapixels and the pictures look great. I have printed many pictures out, some as big as 8x10 and they still look great. I think we only gave about $165 for this one, but that was a couple of years ago. We got it off of ebay, so we got a really good deal on it. Good luck in your camera hunt!!!

It depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for just a regular point and shoot compact camera that can make standard sized prints here are a couple you can look at. I don't know a lot about smaller cameras but I do use a digital slr and I know that quality wise you need at least 4 mp if you are going to do any enlargements. The more megapixels you have the better your prints will look. that said, it's also important that the thing takes good photos also. Optical zoom is better than digital zoom. One in this price range would probably have about a 3x optical zoom. If you're a beginner, one like the .nikon coolpix .l4 has a lot of modes that will help you take your pictures with the click of a button. another one that's pretty good if you can find it in your price range is the Olympus FE-230. I have a friend who has a canon power shot A520 and she likes it. Not too sure how much she paid for it though. I think canon and olympus are manufactured by the same company but canon is the higher end brand name so you are probably getting a pretty similar camera if you buy the olympus.

i saw this camera at best buy the other day, when i was looking. and no lies, it was the one i liked most. they wanted $200 for it, though. and when i brought it up with my boyfriend, he told me that it was overpriced & i'd be insane to purchase it. i almost did, too. because i want a camera .THAT bad. i'm going to try looking it up online, and like you said - ebay.

thanks!

thanks! i'll check them out more online & see if they fall into my price range.

Also a good place to buy from is Overstock.com they have some good deals on cameras. maybe some in your price range too. Shipping is around $2.95