The SLR thread proves that there are some very camera savvy folks within this group but this is not SLR related so I'll start a new thread.
My 'what should I get my wife for Christmas?' question was abruptly answered when I dropped our camera on the weekend while taking pictures of her 1st year of real Christmas decorating in the new home. It still works but battery life has suddenly degraded to under 10 minutes and the optical viewfinder is now crooked by about 8 to 10 degrees. Picture how crazy that made me before I realized what was wrong!
I can't afford an SLR right now. Plus ours is mostly a snapshot lifestyle. It should travel well and should fit in a purse for for my wife. (My big pack has an SLR sized camera pouch on the side that I am itching to fill, but now is not the time and people look at you funny when you wear a backpack to a wedding.)
I haven't done any research on models yet but I am aware of most basic things to consider. Resolution, Optical zoom = good vs. digital zoom = bad, total memory and type, decent LCD screen, etc.
Mine are mostly outdoor pictures while my wife's are mostly vacations, our pets and friendly gatherings of all sorts.
We used very few features on our old. Macro mode makes for some interesting experiments. Red eye I can remove on the PC. Rarely used the video clip feature as it wasn't very good quality on the old, I don't believe I'd miss it and my wife never used it.
Just wondering if anyone has any advice for something around the 200 to 250 $ price range that still produces a nice picture for that price range. Can I expect decent reslts in this price range? I paid 250 for our old but it was a 50% off boxing day sale. It was a HP Photosmart of some model number, nothing special but worked well till it's recent accident. I could pay a bit more if there was a convincing argument in that direction. Any advice on what to look for outside the very basics I already mentioned, is also appreciated.
Some other considerations.
I have a bunch of SD memory cards for various things so being able to utilize them would be nice but not necessary.
I have a ton of rechargeable aa and aaa batteries so I'd prefer to be able to use these vs a self charging proprietary battery. That way, I'm rarely stuck without power and can get away with forgetting the power supply charger on a trip as I can always just break down and by more.
Thanks all who can help
