I want to use it for hi-res background shots for Poser and for photo textures for Poser and Bryce.... And to photograph 2D artwork, too. How many mega pixels should I be looking at? The price difference between 4 and 5 mega pixels is $400, for example...but is the difference worth it, for what I want to use the camera for? Also, any thoughts on stuff like zooms or image storage? Endorsements or pans on brands??

I've done some Poser work using a 1 megapixel camera, as well as my new 6 megapixel camera. In the Poser render, I couldn't really see much of a difference except on extreme close up shots. -Taltos

...a little little little advice. a brand one... Canon is doing wonderful things atm (look for the Powershot s40), Nikon is out with the Coolpix 5700 that is a really nice camera with outstanding results. Don't even look for an Olympus. Has wonderful lenses but the Smart Media Support is out of time and really fragile. (and is limited to 256MB anyway...) For the supports... prefer compact flash (CF) equipped camera, if you can, and a cheap buy could be a IBM microdrive (a little HD that is CF compatible) if the camera you choose supports it. the 1GB one is costly and fragile, but the 320MB and the 512MB ones are excellent.

I have to disagree with Artax about SmartMedia. While it is true that the largest size is 256mb, they are durable. I have been using them for 2.5 years and not had one card fail. I just got back from Siggraph in San Antonio and shot well over 1,000 photos. So I use the camera alot. As far as size goes I perfer to use smaller card sizes and have several cards. That way if a card does go bad, or something happends then the loss of pics is minimized. If I took all my pics on a 512mb card/micro drive and something happend I would lose all my pics. So I don't think the size thing really comes into play. --Randy R

Randy: humm... i think all depends on the camera you have. if your camera shots pics about 3 Megs in size 256 megs are enough anyway... (so 128... ). But if you r camera shots are LARGE or even HUGE you can't keep exchange cards all the time. regarding SM durability. as all things they are durable if you keep a special attention on 'em. I'm only saying that there are solutions that are sturdier than Smart Media ones. only saying that i've seen a lot of Smart Media broken (almost for non careful usage) but no Compact Flashes. Anyway, if you don't mind that your support is 1mm large and you plan to be always really carful with your support , then i guess there's not a Smart Media support problem at all... Anyway i own several cards, from Compact flash to smart media and IBM microdrives for different use.

I have seen Compact Flash cards go bad. I friend of mine had one go bad, and my dad's micro drive went out (lost lots of pics), so I am saying it can happend to any media. Lets say that your camera takes 10 meg files (not any that come close to this) then 256/10 = 25.6 pictures on a card, about the same as a roll of film. I can live with that. I am just saying get the camera you like, the media should not play a big role. --Randy R