I do not like Sony, as they always have something propriatary stuck on them.

Nikon trades on name, and Canon pays Sharopova a zillion dollars.

Any one of the others in the $2-400 range is fine.

If you are familiar with any camera, buy the same brand, as mfgrs seem to gadegitize everything in the same manner.

If you are going to use it to travel, do not buy a hulking big camera. Do not buy expensive, or you will spend all your time worring about theft.

buy a big memory chip, 0.5 to 1.0 gig, so you do not have to download while in venice or london. buy a spare battery. get a case that will carry camera, chip and extra battery. get something that reviewers say has decent glass.

somewhere around 2-4mega pixil is an 8 x 10 300 dpi image, which is plenty.

I find the 10X optical zoom comes in handy for tourist portraits with famous background.

I have a pair(one for wife) of Olympus C-765's. they are discontinued, but have decent glass, are fairly small, and bounce well. they have a propriotary battery, which was a pain, but it is now available.

here's a bunch of dog pictures. you can see that when I get it right, the photo is quite good and would make a great 8 x 10:

http://slawecki.com/BUTCH/