Maygen Don't worry about the brand of your camera. You can take an excellent photograph with a disposable or even a pinhole camera (a pinhole doesn't even have a lens, see?). Brand name debates are just dumb, IMO. Your camera accepts different lenses, and to me those lenses are like the different gears on a bicycle--meant to be used. A short lens (wide angle of view) is good for some tasks (landscapes and interiors, for starters), long lenses (telephotos) are essential for other tasks (wildlife and paparazzi work). Your zoom lens (focal lenght 70-210) is in the sort of "short telephoto range". The lens your camera came with might be a 50 mm. It should say on the lens. 50 mm is considered "normal" for 35 mm cameras. The other numbers you listed (4.5-4.6, should the second number be 5.6, perhaps?) have to do with the diameter of the shutter when it's open, AKA the aperture. A smaller number is a bigger aperture. A bigger aperture lets in more light, so you can use a faster shutter. Faster shutter generally means sharper photo, and is also good for moving subjects, of course (freezes the action). If your camera is fully automatic, it is making the decisions about aperture and shutter speed for you. If you like the results then it's making good decisions; but if it has manual overrides, then you are missing out on some creative possibilities... So. You need to know about lenses in general: www.Photo.Net has good tutorial types of things that explain about lenses and lens optics and so forth. Probably a little technical, but...free and fairly short, 10 or 15 pages. Um. Just a thought. Ansel Adams book "The Camera", costs about 17 bucks at Barnes and Noble, is very clear, and is not long. Unlike this post, which is very long, and probably not clear. Sorry! Sue