Thinking about gettng a new camera, can anyone give a good suggestion?

it seems you are after the same sort of camera I was looking for...I made a list of what I was looking for and went to a camera store, I take photos of bands on stage and photos that will be good enough to make big posters with..I was wanting a DSLR with a zoom lens but I was lucky enough to get a good saleman who exolained to me that zooming looses quality in the picture so he suggested a package deal that had going at the time... Canon EOS 1000D with the ordinary lens and a 200m extra lens, which I did buy and I love it, its a great little camera....then I bought closeup filters from Ebay...I am very happy with my camera.

It really depends on what you're looking to do with it and what you're willing to spend. I would recommend going for well-known brands like Kodak, Cannon, etc. Brands that you know are trustworthy.

Also, if you want to take good pictures with zoom, I would recommend buying a tripod with your camera if you don't already have one.

As for the camera itself, like I said, it depends on a lot of factors. I currently have a Fuji Finepix S1000, which is a lovely camera. It's not as user-friendly as the Kodak cameras (it's meant strictly for photography and it gets its job done well). It's got 10 megapixels and 12x zoom and cost me $250. The 10 MP make the pictures look FANTASTIC (or they do compared to the 5MP camera I had before this one).

Before the Fuji, I was using two Kodaks that belonged to other people. One was a Z750 and the other a Z640. Both were very good, reliable cameras with around 5MP (the Z640 might've been 7MP) and 10x zoom. They took wonderful pictures and were extremely easy to use. Even my grandparents could use the Kodak and they're very technology illiterate. Trouble is, those both were in the same range as my Fuji camera. I think they might've been around $200.

I just got a 12 MP Canon Powershot (A series) for $200 that takes decent zoom photos depending on the available light but the real advantage is the video quality. I took video in my classes and made a DVD that was shown at the end of the school year and the quality was just as clear when projected larger (think really big TV screen).