Elizabeth, thanks for the info on the Consumer reviews of digital cameras. The latest model Olympus, about $500 more expensive than either the Olympus 2000 or the Nikon, will probably take the honors for the best, since it has a true single lens reflex viewing. The comments I've received on the Kodak are that it is easier to use than most, because of many automated features (but it also eliminates some of the control a Nikon user has), and because of its shape, size, and weight, it is a bit clunky to hold and use.
Anyone who watched the final game of the World Series would have seen numerous digital cameras in use as the Yankees came off the field. These cameras appeared to be either Kodak or Canon equivalents, of the $15,000 variety. They have a very high resolution CCD (charge coupled device) and use the interchangeable Canon EOS lenses. Given their size and cost, they are not really suited for anything but press photography.
Once serious amateurs (the kind that buy digital cameras in the $1000 range) realize the kind of quality they can obtain with good printers and software, conventional cameras, film and prints will be gone. I estimate that I am now using the Nikon for about 300 - 400 photos a year. Assuming that about half of them are suitable for something more than just casual prints, given the much lower cost of digital prints, I will probably have recovered the entire cost of the camera, printer, and software investment in a year. And because of the ability to improve the printed image quality, the results in most cases are better than what one would be able to get with conventional cameras and film. The exception is for very large prints or very large magnification from a cropped photo - cases where the pixel resolution on these cameras begins to obscure finer details.
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