check the best buy site. they had a 5 meg gateway for something like 200. we bought one & it is a pentax. really pleased with it.

Anything higher than 4.0 or up will deliver excellent quality photo's that you can blow up to almost poster size with little in the way of degradation.

The Kodak 5.0 offers a great camera at a good price approx $300 (in that area) You don't really need to spend the big bucks for good quality.
Some guys will tell you otherwise but they are the ones that keep prices high. Remember "The Buyer Sets The Price" not the seller.

biggerthanforty - Digital cameras can be complicated. In short, mega-pixels do have some influence on how big the photos can be blown up to, but the chip size of the camera is more important. I won't go into details here, but the same old rule of thumb applies - you get what you pay for!



Canon, you just can't go wrong with - they've got a great reputation and great service.



As a rule of thumb, (for photos that are to be reproduced at 300dpi) you can use the following "conversion." These assume you're not using an "inexpensive" camera for the given mega-pixel range:



4-megapixels will take you up to about 6x8 @ 300dpi.

5-megapixels will take you up to about 8x10 @ 300dpi.

6-megapixels will take you up to about 10x12 @ 300dpi.

etc...



Here's the exact formula:



"Long print dimension in inches = 4 x (square root of megapixels)



For example, for a four megapixel camera the square root of four is two. Two times four is eight. Thus the biggest print you can make without losing sharpness compared to film at normal viewing distances is is 6 x 8." From a sixteen MP camera likewise you could go 12 x 16."



So, if you want to spend less than say $500.00 buy a good Canon, Sony, or whatever you like in the 4-5 megapixel range.



The SLR Canons start at about 1K, but have multiple lenses, etc...



Here's a good place to get educated. megapixel.net

I am into photography like I am my hunting and guns. I tote a digital SLR, even on backpack hunts. But for some one who just wants a good camera and not go nuts with it, I always reccomend the Nikon Coolpix 8700 (the number is something like this). It can approach the creative control of an SLR, works great as a simply point and shoot, and weighs and takes up less space than an SLR. I have fooled with them and they are very good cameras