Call me a Luddite, but I still prefer film for most all of my photography. I work in a research library with a large Special Collection division, and paper and film is still more reliable to keep than digital images. In my opinion, at least. I use a Canon A-1 at home, and at work I use an old Olympus and a newer Nikon.

For my Canon I have a variety of lenses, and a tripod that I can set up as a copy stand, and flash that can be bounced around to avoid glare. And most importantly, when I take my film in for processing, I take it to a good camera shop where they also burn me a CD for $5 more over the developing and printing. This isn't your corner pharmacy CD with the little 300dpi jpg for making a 4x6 print, this is a CD with a 5 meg TIFF of each shot. This works for prints, for print enlargements to a point, and gives you tons of information when selecting it for web use. (Every so often I have to sit down with friends with new cameras and show them how to save the images then make a smaller version to send with email. Someone mentioned that above. If you will send me a PM I can help you figure out what programs are on your system and how you can use them to edit your photos).

I do have a couple of little digital cameras. My first was a little point and shoot camera meant for email. I've gotten a lot of use out of it, considering it's like peeking through a keyhole. No flash. Cost $20. The one I bought recently, also for web work and email, but in truth I can take very large photos with this that are almost print quality, cost $70 at Fry's. 2.1 megapixel, zoom ability (I haven't figured out how to use that yet). This has a flash. It has room for a memory card, and I've seen them over at Fry's and they're not too expensive.

The one thing that has slowed down my learning about this new camera is that the directions are an awkward translation from Chinese to Engrish. I haven't made head nor tails of some of the information in the manual. You do get what you pay for!

Good luck Don, in finding something that will work for you. The jewelry on the page linked above is beautiful.

SRS