Another big difference among digital cameras is form factor. Increasingly, it's easy to find a model that's small enough to fit into a shirt pocket or purse. Steve really likes that, since it encourages people to keep the camera handy at all times and decreases the tourist-nerd aspect of having a camera dangling from a strap around one's neck.
Angela concurs, but notes that the smallest cameras often have tiny screens that can be hard to read, like the one on the teensy Sony Cyber-shot DSC-L1. Again she notes her fondness for the Canon PowerShot SD500--small camera, relatively big screen.
On the other end of the size spectrum, the Duo look at digital single-lens-reflex, or SLR, models--fast, powerful, and a bit big, with the ability to use interchangeable lenses just as film-using SLRs do. (In fact, choose wisely and you may be able to repurpose the lenses you already have for your film SLR.) These units can also handle more-powerful flash units, which come in handy if you prefer to bounce your illumination off the ceiling for a softer look.
Digital SLRs can give savvy shooters a lot of manual control, but they all have point-and-shoot modes that work well. Prices start in the neighborhood of $800 (including a basic lens) and work their way up into the stratosphere; they're the baby brothers of what pros use, and unless you're a pro, one of these units will be more than enough camera for you for a very long time.
Angela notes, however, that one quirk of digital SLRs really isn't to her liking. As with the film-style SLRs, you actually have to put your eye up to the viewfinder on the models they saw rather than simply looking at the LCD screen on the back of the camera. On the SLRs, that screen can be used to review photos once they're snapped, but not to frame the images beforehand. Through-the-lens framing is better for holding the camera steady, she sniffs, but LCD framing gives you a far more accurate idea of what the camera's actually going to capture.
Steve turns his attention to the question of zoom. The Duo like optical zoom, and most cameras have a 3X version of that, but the Duo warn buyers away from the frankly icky digital zoom. Digital zoom significantly reduces picture quality, and you can zoom for yourself after the fact just by cropping your picture with photo-editing software and blowing it up bigger. Manufacturers tout huge digital-zoom numbers as a feature; the Duo, on the other hand, not only recommend ignoring those claims but suggest you shut off the feature if it's included with the camera you end up using.
Steve and Angela saw a relatively inexpensive Panasonic Lumix model, the LZ1, with a 6X optical zoom and a fairly small body. Another Lumix--the FZ5, which is about twice as expensive as the LZ1--comes in a bigger package and includes a 12X optical zoom, which can put you right up close to the lions in the veld (or at the zoo). Even better, both cameras include image stabilization--the same kind of anti-shake technology you find on camcorders and some binoculars.
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