I am NOT a photography expert, but have been using an Olympus D-490Z for a year now. I bought it for a trip, and found it wonderful to be able to view all my pictures every night, delete the ones that were no good, and carry them in 3 tiny disks (over 300 pictures). Since then, I have used it for other pictures such as the ones in the ILCA Website about the ILCA Regional Conference in California. As for taking mom/baby pictures, one option I like is not always needing a flash, so that I can avoid the overly-white and loss of contrast that sometimes occurs with flash pictures. I also LOVE being able to look immediately at how this picture came out - I can then keep or erase or take another. The quality and ability to crop and see detail depends more on what is the density you choose for the pictures you take - if you take very high density pixel pictures, you can't take as many per disk, but you can then crop, enlarge, and still avoid the graininess - if you take the lowest number of pixels, then any cropping and enlarging will make it look very grainy. My camera allows me to get VERY close - like taking a close-up of a petal on a rose - and see it on the screen so that I can then decide when to take the picture. If you are taking a picture to e-mail or for a website, you should not take the most dense one, because it makes downloading of all that data very slow - some people may not even be able to download it. My camera has 3 settings - and so far has been meeting my needs very well. As I bought it a year ago, I'm sure there are newer, cheaper ones with more flexibility. HOWEVER - I have had 2 problems - 1) the type of battery it takes is VERY expensive, and using the AA rechargeable battery means I need to recharge often 2) it is at the repair shop for the second time in the last 3 months...so I recommend getting warranties with them! Jeanette Panchula, BSW, RN, PHN, IBCLC NEW E-mail: mailto:[log in to unmask] *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html