Update 06/04/2005:
Just wanted to comment that my wife and I went to Hawaii and took over 200 pictures with this camera and ended up printing out about 30 of them. The pictures looked great, including the 2 8x10s that we made. Looked just as good as my film camera prints. We continue to be very happy with this camera.

Update 04/28/2005:
I hope that no one went out and bought this camera for use in Saltwater aquarium photography, because I have to remove my recommendation for that with further use of the camera. I played more with the manual settings of the camera and I now am disappointed in the manual options. You cannot set the f-stop on this camera manually. The f-stop ranges from 2.8-4.9 and can only be controlled by zooming the camera lens in and out.

With the zoom being somewhat jerky I found controlling the depth of field nearly impossible on this camera. Add to the fact that the macro mode only works on the 2.8 setting, that leads to a narrow depth of field and if you are trying to take a macro of a object that fills up most of the viewfinder then the edges will almost always be out of focus. For those of you out there who haven't read up on f-stop, a larger f-stop number allows a greater depth of field and area of crisp focus.

This can be compensated for somewhat by turning off the macro mode and keeping your subject about 20-24" away from the camera and zooming in so you get the full 4.9 f-stop. However, this then causes the camera to think you are trying to focus on the glass of the aquarium a lot and makes this only a partial solution.

This camera is still great for the other uses I stated, I just would now recommend a different camera for SW aquarium photography. As soon I use a suitable replacement, I'll update again.

Intro:
My family uses this digital camera quite a bit for a variety of reasons. We needed a camera that could take portraits and family photos that could be printed out to at least 8x10 pictures. This camera easily accomplishes this and the 8x10s look great. We have not tried larger pictures, but plan to in the future. We also needed the camera to take high resolution and color accurate pictures for our business and it again performs admirably for this function. The ease of use on this camera is great and connecting to a computer and downloading could not be simpler with the included software.

This camera is also fairly lightweight and easily fits into most t-shirt or coat pockets. The battery has excellent life and by reducing some of the LCD screen settings you can easily take 100 pictures or more before having to recharge the battery.

The Basics:
Memory Type: CompactFlash Card Type I(very reliable memory and relatively inexpensive) - 32MB card included
Resolution: 5.3 Megapixels
Optical Zoom: 3x (A little weak, but useful for some landscape and portrait shots. Don't expect telephoto performance out of this zoom.)
Built-in Flash
1.5 rear LCD screen for instant review of images
10 second self-timer

Video mode:
Video Resolutions 160 x 120
Video Speed 15 fps
Max Movie Length 180 Seconds
Video Format AVI

Interface:
USB cable(included)

Battery:
Proprietary Lithium Battery NB-1LH(included)
Battery Charger(included)


The Good:
I especially like the macro mode and use it for taking pictures of saltwater fish tanks with high quality pictures that result. Taking pictures through a pane of glass (which is sometimes dirty) is one of the ultimate tests of macro and camera capability. While some shots don't turn out as wanted, I think this would happen with any digital camera and I'm constantly being asked which camera I use so that other saltwater fish tank keepers can buy this camera.

I enjoyed trying out the panoramic picture settings and stitching the pictures together in the included software was a relatively easy task. I have not tried printing out a panoramic picture yet though.

The menus on the back of the camera are intuitive and easy to use once you have tried them a few times. Looking at the well designed manual included with the camera will speed the learning process up for the menus.

The Bad:
My only big complaint for this camera is the lack of a manual focus mode, you can control a lot of the other functions of the camera manually, but no true manual focus. If manual focus is important to you, then you should skip this camera. If it isn't then this is a great point and shoot camera.

Could be better:
The camera has some trouble in determining the correct auto white balance setting to choose in very bright or very dim settings. This is pretty minor and you can tell right away on the display window if a picture is off. You can then just switch to manual mode, set the white balance manually and re-shoot the picture. This can be done in about 10-15 seconds once you get the hang of it.

The macro mode occasionally has "fuzz" on the picture and this makes the pictures unprintable. Through a series of tests, I determined this was cause by my hand shaking while the macro picture was taken. When using macro mode it is best to brace yourself or to use a tripod. You can also use the 10 second delay setting to press the button and then stabilize the camera while it is counting down.

The delay between pressing the button and the camera taking the picture is about one second which could have a negative impact on action photographs, but is fine for most other applications.

I have very large hands and that makes it difficult to control at times, but for users with slightly above average to small sized hands should not have this problem.

Summary:
lightweight with excellent battery life. Good charger included. 32MB card included is too small for print pictures, I would advise getting a larger card. Great feature for manually setting white balance and several other good manual settings available that I have not tried yet.

Good results with taking hundreds of pictures of my SW fish tank, but in hindsight getting a camera with a manual focus would be better.

I would highly recommend this camera for the average point and shoot user who wants to print out vacation and family shots up to 8x10. Someone running a small business that needs product shots for print or a website will be very happy with this camera. But someone wanting more control over manual focus and better shutter speed for action shots might want to pass on this camera.



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 349.99
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts