2.1 megapixels or more if you want to go digital (just keep in mind that you will have to shoot a lot of pictures to make it worth it, so if it will only be for parks and coasters, you may want to think about a cheaper film camera instead just because it will cost sever hundred dollars).
Depending on how much you planned on using the camera, Smartmedia may not be a good option because it can only go up to 128MB, while current cameras using Compactflash may be able to go up to the 1GB Microdrive.
DPreview, DCresource, and Steve's Digicams are prety much all interconnected (though it may not be readily apparent) adn you can't go wrong with checking any of them, but dpreview is just more complete IMHO. Keep in mind that it's geared towards professionals and dedicated hobbyists, so skip through parts that you don't care about.
Depending on the budget you're looking at, go with one of the familiar names. Sony, Canon, Olympus, Nikon, Fuji are all excellent choices no matter how you look at it.
For the record: I own the Canon G1 (yes, I spent too much money long ago) with a 1 gig microdrive. Spent a lot of money, but the flexibility of taking multiple shots freely and getting better at taking pictures has paid off to me.
*** This post was edited by thrillfan on 9/30/2002. ***
I would highly reccomend the Kodak LS-420. IF anyone's seen XXX (bad movie) it is the same digi-cam i have. It is about 1.5 inches tall, 4 inches wide, and .5 inches deep. 2 Megapixels, but has good quality. I really like 2 things about it, 1)Small size; it can easily fit in my front pocket and 2)Low Cost; only $300. It takes great pictures of coasters, only about 5% of my pictures taken come out blurry. I orignally bought it for coasters & hockey, which it worked fine for, but now use it at my site. The only problem with it is that pictures taken closer than 2 feet away look terrible. It's still a great camera for anything. I've taken about 300 very high quality coaster pictures which look like they were taken by a camera that costs 3x as much. The battery is fantastic. It's rechargable, and lasts forever. It's only died out once, after leaving it on for some 9 hours in Washington. Good luck finding it though, I was the first person to buy it from Best Buy in NE Ohio, and they havent been selling many of them.
I would not buy the Fuji QuikPix 6800, terrible camera. No pictures came out clear out of some 200 pictures. The shutter speed was 92/100 seconds, long time. While it did have a 6.0 Megapixel CCD, the pictres were at LEAST 2000x2500, the only pictures that were 640x480 were of VGA quality. I returned it after 20 days and had to pay a $250 restocking fee for using the usb software, which was also terrible. That camera was not worth the $800 with didn't include the 128mb memory card.
Get a Kodak LS-420, you won't be dissapointed
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"I waited 4 hours for X and all i got was this stupid t-shirt"
Coaster Count: 112
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