Planning to buy a new digital camera  

Both Sony and Canon make great cameras. Buy a model with a rechargeable lithium ion battery and you won't have the problem with needing a new battery every 3-4 hours. The cameras come with the lithium ion battery and with the charger. My Sony is a couple of years old but the model is the W80.

Are you planning to buy the typical camera, the point and shoot? or the professional camera(Digital SLR)? For Point and shoot Digital camera,I'll suggest Canon Powershot G9,the Canon Powershot G9 is quite expensive ($500)The price is mainly due to the number of features that the G9 has, including an optical viewfinder,12.1MP resolution, and a number of manual features.The G9 is the closest camera to a SLR.

And for DSLR (Professional camera), Canon EOS - 1Ds mark III. This camera is the cream of the crop when it comes to DSLRs, and since it is a top-of-the-line camera, you can expect to pay a premium price for it.

I decided on a Canon. Was debating between that or Nikon. For the money and quality I went with Canon. It's a starter camera. Someone suggested to get one cheap before investing big later. I'm planning on taking pics and submit them for payment. Then if I make enough I'll get the higher more popular Nikon.