yet another "new camera?" question

ok, so i currently have alittle kodak easy share, it works for what it is, basic...
i get good shots about 50% of the time, the rest tend to come out fuzzy, grainy, glarey or just plain too dark...

i WANT:
an easy to use beginner camera
something a little more advanced than a simple point and shoot, but nothing too fancy, im not realy interested in interchangable lenses.
Budget friendly, i cannot ever imagine spending more than $250 on a digi cam
easy interface, it should be very simple to dl pics form the camera to the computer...

i plan to use this camera for:
taking pictures of the dogs, inside and out. something that will capture them even at their normal pace of always moving lol
day trips to places like the zoo, so a good zoom with clear pictures and good in low light.
ren faire, something with good color capture cause fair is a colorfull place.
people, nothing portait studio style, but i do take pics of my friends and family.
close up, i like to take pictures of flowers and such, so something that can get in close get the detail and not look off would be great. (suprisingly my current camera actually takes nice shots up close of things that dont move lol.)

i know im asking alot out of a "budget" camera, but i think theres got to be something buget frinedly that can do at least most of those things.

ive been looking at the kodak Z950 i like that its an easy share camera and will work with my printer dock wihtout any extra cables.

im more than happy to look at other brands and models, and i do know that MP's are not nessicaily better higher lol. i may want to print out a few larger prints but nothing poster sized lol 10 x 13 tends to be as big as i go for print outs so less Mega pixles is fine..

i is sooo confused.

I've had nothing but good experiences with Canon. My friend has the older version of This camera and it takes really nice pictures. You said you like close ups/zooming, so this one fits those criteria because it has a macro setting and a nice optical zoom (which is what you want... digital zoom sacrifices the quality of the image so if you like zooming in, you're looking for optical).
It's got the fancy manual settings but you can throw it on auto and be fine.


I loved, loved, loved my Canon. It was a Powershot S2 IS. I love the DSLR that I have now but seriously--if my Canon wouldn't have broke, I would not have been so anxious to get an SLR. That thing took great pictures even though I had no clue what I was doing lol.


Personally, not really a fan of Kodak!

I have a Canon Powershot A540, which granted is quite old in terms of cameras, but short story is that I don't like it.

My sister has a Sony Cybershot something or other and it's quite a nice camera. Cost $200 IIRC. It can't do anything fancy like 8 frames per second shooting but the pictures are real clear, has a short cycling time, and is fully adjustable.

I got her hand-me down which is the camera one step below hers in models. Only thing I don't like about it is that it's all touch screen. Hard to get an exact adjustment easily and if you have fat fingers like yours truly, well that has inherent problems with any touch screen technology.


How simple are you looking for in uploading? Simple is quite relative. My simple is that you plug it into the USB, it pops up with either some kind of manager or the option to open the folder directly (failing that, I can navigate through My Computer and open the camera directly that way), and can drag and drop to desktop. Simple for my parents is that you plug it in and everything automatically dumps onto the desktop.