Digital Photography

An Introduction

Mid-1980s - 1990: Sony and Canon make "Still Video Cameras"
Early 1990s: low-res grayscale cameras
Mid-1990s: Kodak-modified Nikon SLR body: $10,000. Other Kodak, Apple offerings too expensive for consumers.
1998-99: Market matures with Canon, Fuji, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, et al. competing to build more feature-laden cameras.
2003-2006: Consumer D-SLRs, a slowing of the megapixel wars, consolidation.

3 MP (2048x1536) and lower. You can hardly find new any more. 3 MP will make decent prints up to 8x10. Can make good "beater" or hazardous condition cameras.
4-6 MP. This is currently the most common.
7-8 MP and above. The "better" consumer cameras are now in this range. Also consumer D-SLR territory.
10+ MP. The current "high" end.

Image stablization, sometimes called "anti-shake" - helps reduce camera shake at slower shutter speed
4x or greater optical zoom - digital zoom is meaningless
Shooting modes
Video recording
Video connectivity
Wireless connectivity such as WiFi or Bluetooth
Weather resistance

Low-cost color inkjet printers, big hard drives, CD-R drives, and full-color displays helped fuel the market.
Top-rated inkjet printers: Epson, Canon, and HP "Photo" series.
Few inkjet prints have archival longevity.
Low-cost dye transfer printers have the cost per print down to 29¢ and have better archival performance.
If you want to pass pictures down to future generations, you better be a diligent computer archivist.

A lot of cameras can hook up to or dock with printers and print directly.
Some printers can take camera memory cards and print from there.
Just about all one-hour photo labs can now handle digital output and make you a CD.
Remember archival issues though if you choose to go inkjet only.

Save friends time and aggravation of downloading e-mailed photos. Aunt Betty Lou can order prints on her own nickel or print them herself.
Walgreens: My one-hour champ. Up to 8x10 prints. Pick up at local store.
Kodak Gallery: My old favorite. Shipped or next day at CVS for a fee.
Harmon's (www.showprints.com): Printing only, but pro quality, Gainesville
EZPrints.com prints 6" or 12" panoramas by length.
Flickr.com: Popular sharing site, printing is relatively new there and I've never tried it.

Pros use Photoshop
Photoshop Elements, however, is good and inexpensive for non-pros (and may have come bundled with your camera)
Picasa - This tool, free from Google, is a great organizational (among other things) tool for Windows users.
JAlbum - Also free, my favorite tool for creating photo albums that look like they belong in an existing web site.