When I went looking for a dig camera, these were some of my criteria:

• Use AA batteries rather than proprietary batteries - never be caught with flat batteries
• Min 6x optical zoom. Forget digital zoom, that just reduces the picture resolution and only useful in limited circumstances
• Fast action from pressing button to taking photo (some cameras have a long lag, though much better with current models than a few years back)

I always carry at least one spare set of fully charged AA NiMH 2100mAh batteries in my camera case. Digi camera are heavy on batteries. And if I am ever caught with flat batteries I can go into almost any corner store and buy a set of Alkaline AA's.

Watch out for lenses with large zooms. They generally have poor wide angle performance. Its great to be able to zoom in to get a close-up pic of that aircraft at the other end of the tarmac, but there are times when you will want a wide angle to get the aircraft parked in the adjacent bay. Without going to the expense of a camer with SLR-style interchangable lenses, make sure you understand the compromise between zoom and wide angle performance. Mine only goes out to 34mm and there are times I would really prefer to get out to 28mm. But I do like the 6x optical zoom and use that quite regularly.

There are not many digital still camera that do a very good job of movies with audio. If that is a major criteria, then I suggest you really want to look for a digital video camera that has still shot capability, and I don't have much experience with them to offer.

By the way, Fuji and Olympus make some good cameras with good 6x to 10x optical zoom lenses.