Wow guys, who said don't go with Olympus???!
I've done a lot of research on digital cameras and the top three manufacturers are consistently Canon, Olympus, and Sony. I myself own the Olympus D-510 and love it. I'll be upgrading to the C-50 in short order, only because I want a smaller camera.
THe techimo link above has links to a number of great resources. My personal favorite (the one that decided me on the D-510 is imaging-resource. Here's a link to their 2MP camera reviews....
http://imaging-resource.com/DIGCAM04.HTM
As for Olympus having a lot of refurbs, my only guess is that their cameras are so good, that the refurbs are selling well... that's why you see a lot of them. Canon and Olympus have the FEWEST aftermarket problems with their digicams.
sMoKiE,
You should check out these review sites that we've posted and looked for models in your price range, then if possible go to your local camera store and try it out! Everyone likes their cameras differently so hands on testing should be a good final determinant. My own personal reccomendations as far as features go are thus:
-all glass optics (the best image producing film cameras have all glass lenses, the same goes with digicams.)
-optical zoom (digital zoom is essentially worthless, it only magnifies the image after the image has been stored... it's like watching a perfect looking video on your computer in regular mode only to find out it's blurry at full-screen mode)
-uncompressed image format (this only applies if you are nitpicky about your images as I am. Virtually every manufacturer uses JPEG compression to store their images... it's a good compression [sort of like what divx does with large MPEG files] that reduces the size need to store the image... but essentially it removes random pixels throughout the picture to do this...there's a lot to explain about this and I can't do it all here, there are numerous links on the internet that can explain indepth.)
-optical viewfinder!!! (this is my biggest petpeeve about fuji's! They use what is called an electronic viewfinder... essentially it looks exactly like the LCD screen. This is fine under normal lighting conditions, but in low light it's VERY hard to seen anything using the "EVF")
-the more manual settings, the more you can tinker with the camera... it's up to you what you need and want. Good manual settings to have include ISO settings, exposure control, whitebalance, and a variety of image sizes (eg. 640x400, 1280x1096, etc.)
Here's my two cents on camera manufacturers. If they make good film cameras, it's almost a given they make decent digital cameras.
-Kodak's make very good photos and come with the popular docking station which makes it's use very very easy. My only complain with Kodak is that they do not use all glass optics, which can hurt sharpness, especially in the long run.
-Nikon and Fuji also take very good photos, though I personally wouldn't choose them. I don't like the setup of most their cameras (evf, zoom location, etc.)
-Sony's take great pictures. Period. One big problem though is that once you go Sony, you really go Sony. Their better cameras use the Sony memory stick, manufactured exclusively by them... this drives up the price, not to mention that it's not compatible with other cameras (should you decide to upgrade).
-Olympus is my personal favorite. They are extremely reliable, take very sharp photos, use all the features that I mentioned above, and have the biggest model range of any digicam manufacturer. This makes it easier to find the camera that's right for you. I love my D-510, it takes beautiful pictures on auto and has numerous settings to tweak. I'll be upgrading to the C-50 shorty only because of size. I want to be able to take it anywhere.
-Canon's pictures are at the top of the heap along with Olympus, Sony, and Fuji. They have a qide selection of cameras and support almost all the features I listed above. I almost went with Canon, the only drawback I have is that you cannot take pictures in uncompressed format. Again for most people this will never be an issue. I just like to have it there for those "special" pictures.
Hope this info helps you out!!
If you have any specific questions, just ask, it's what we're here for.
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