Hey there. I just bought my first digital camera and am trying to decide whether I should switch it for another. Here's the deal:

I am not a great photographer, nor am I patient when it comes to many things technological. I also am a huge klutz. I am going on a 6-12 month trip around the world and wanted a tiny, light camera. Given all these factors, I bought the Olympus SW720. It's waterproof to 10 feet and shockproof (enough to survive a five foot fall). There are no manual controls, but there are tons o' profiles and fun functions to use, like candlelight, portrait, available light, night landscape, etc. The battery life kinda sucks, but I bought a second battery to compensate. It has 7.1 mp resolution, although I have doubts about the picture quality from what I can tell on the viewfinder.

The thing is, I thought it might be fun to try and be a better photographer. Or to have a camera that makes me seem a better photographer. And perhaps it would be fun to fool around with certain manual functions. Like opening the aperture to take cool night photos. I also envy the sharpness of my friend's Fuji Finepix.

Anyhoo, I'd love to have some great pics from my trip. I wonder whether it makes sense to get the Finepix or some other camera that is slightly heavier and larger and more fragile, but takes higher quality pictures. In the end, it's a balancing act between my klutz syndrome (it really is not a good thing) and that needling desire to have some nice, sharp pics from my trip around the world... Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I think the best thing for you to do right now is take a bunch of pictures. Use the presets and compare them to the full automatic settings. Then print them out or at least put them on a computer. You really can't tell the picture quality by viewing them on the camera. Take lots and lots of pictures. Delete the ones you don't like. That is the beauty of digital cameras.
And by all means have fun with it.

i have a few Olympus cameras. Do not trust the view finder as to how sharp the pictures are. remember, it is only what, 3" big? It cannot show that fine a picture.

Take pictures, lots of them. Then check them out on your computer and also print them. You will see how lovely the pictures are. (for the record, I have a fancy schmancy Olympus, that is about 4.3 MP and takes some of the most beautiful pics I have ever taken, using basic settings...much better than my old Fuji Finepix 5+MP. My new, smaller Olympus is 6.1 also takes really nice pics, even though it doesn't have a ton of various functions). You can be a really good photographer even with a smaller camera.

if you are willing to spend the money go for a canon elfh is the one for you...it has image stabilization which many other camera do not...If you are not the best photographer this is prevent your pictures from being blurry...as far as the water protection and shockproof...

also mega pixels are overrated...Unless you are using an extremely high quality printer, anything between 6-8 is pretty much the same...Also if you plan on blowing up the pictures beyond 8-10 then you might to start to see a difference.

canon elph

this link will take you to all the canon elph's scroll down to the Canon Elph PowerShot SD800, that was the first canon elph with image stabilization

what i meant to say was that water protection and it being shockproof shouldn't be your main focus about the camera...if it happens it happens...

The Olympus cameras are some of the best out there. They have excellent lenses - I would always recommend an Olympus over a Fuji camera. Sharp, glass lenses that are the priority of the camera... everything else is a feature.

I've been getting some pictures on my Canon digital camera from a couple of years ago than on my film SLR, although it can be hit and miss. If you know how to use your camera, you can get great photos.

When I worked at Black's we had someone bring in a ton of disposable cameras - they had to purchase them after their normal camera was stolen in Europe and they couldn't get a replacement. Knowing the limitations of the disposables, the photographer (a photojournalist) still did a fantastic job that would rival someone who doesn't know how to use their $600 camera.