I bridled at first when I read Karen's response.  She should have put an
exclamation point on "Wrong!"  I obviously meant:

"If you can find a camera with a good zoom lens, choose it over the
_digital_ zoom which almost any photo editing program can do on your
computer."

Depending on budget, I would still suggest choosing a high ratio zoom lens
over a 2 mega pixel chip.  (If you can find both and afford it, by all
means, do.)  Assume that by using a 14x lens you can just fill the frame
of an 850K chip with your subject - a bee will do.  All of the frame is
devoted to the image of the bee. At the same distance using a 3x telephoto
and a 2 meg chip, only 428K pixels will be devoted to the same subject
after cropping.  There is twice as much data in the image of the bee
captured with the first system.  Obviously, if you can count on being
close enough to fill the frame with your intended subject, the finer the
chip the better.

Both the screen and the viewfinder on the Mavica are through the lens.

On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Karen Oland wrote:

> Wrong. the DIGITAL zoom is what you can do on the computer.... I prefer
> true SLR also, not a viewfinder....

> If you want to do hi-res or blown up large prints, don't go below
> the 2 megapixel size....

---------------
Richard Yarnell, SHAMBLES WORKSHOPS | No gimmick we try, no "scientific"
Beavercreek, OR. Makers of fine     | fix we attempt, will save our planet
Wooden Canoes, The Stack(R) urban   | until we reduce the population. Let's
composter, Raw Honey                | leave our kids a decent place to live.