Hi Andrew,

The Coolpix is still your best bet. There is almost no difference between
5.24MP and 5.0. The mitigating factor is the CCD. In direct comparison
to the Minolta 5.24 Dimage 7, the Nikon 5.0 beat it in every category. What's
more, I am fairly certain that Nikon still bundle the excellent
Genuine Fractals
software which enables you to literally double the resolution. If you go way
back and look at the American Conchologist issue that had the Murex princeps
on the cover (I believe it was a 2001 issue), that cover was actually
shot using
a 2.0MP Epson camera, then I used the Genuine Fractals software to increase
the resolution so that I could actually produce a 300ppi image to fit
the cover.

If your heart lies with Sony, you will still be quite happy with the DSC-F717
as it has an incredible, razor sharp glass lens that is, I believe, designed
by Zeiss for that camera. Memory stick prices have come down, but as long
as it is a proprietary format, they will always be higher per megabyte than
Compact Flash, etc.

As mentioned, Paul Kanner's shot last issue of the Pecten diegensis on the
back cover was taken with his Nikon. I'm not positive which model it is,
but I certainly feel the resolution is more than good enough for
prints to 8 x 10
and possibly beyond. Hey Paul, what's your Nikon model??

Best regards,
Jim

>I was looking at the Sony Cybershot DSC-F717 (best resolution in the
>class, 5.24Mp), but it needs Sony-only memory sticks ($$). Olympus,
>Canon, Pentax make no equivalent with a decent resolution. Minolta
>makes 2 cameras with excellent reviews, but they are not
>learner-friendly and eat batteries at a horrific rate. The only other
>option was the Coolpix; its disadvantage is only 5.0Mp resolution.

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