Dear Sieglinde As has been mentioned... Nikon 900 Series is great for macro photography and high resolution. I am on my 3rd generation of it. (E950, E990, E995) Additionally it has dozens of accessories. (I'll send you a list of them separately) The 990 is a very good version & you should be able to pick it up at a good price now that is discontinued & has been replaced with the E995. I find there performance & capabilities to be comparable. Differences are: E990 uses 4 AA batteries E995 has a proprietary rechargeable battery, a pop-up flash, a little faster storage response time & is a little bit smaller/lighter. Someone posted on Conch-L that they had one for sale a month or so ago. Check the archives… Leslie Dear members of the list I have the intention to make some nice images of different things, including some shells, if I can do this also with a digital camera. Which digital could you consider. I don't want spend too much about 500 dollars or somewhat more (here in in Europe about 400 - 600 €). How many pixels should the camera have (I think about 1.200.000 - 2.000.000) should be sufficient, the card should have at about 8 - 12 MB, zoom from 2,5 - 3 should be enough. My computer has an AMD processor with 800 MHz and 512 MBSD RAM, the monitor is from Compaq 17''S /10, I am working with an solution of about 1024 x 760 about that. Can you give me some good advices. I hope to hear from you again as soon as possible Sieglinde