Carolyn, Yeah, right. Like it's ever a good idea to believe anything a "sales lady" ("person") at Circuit City (or wherever) says. My guess is that Kodak (or Circuit City) has a promotion going this month that gives this person a bonus for every Kodak camera she sells. In any event, "Returns" are relative. Of course, the companies with greater sales are going to have greater "returns" -- for, by the way, many reasons other than quality issues. Anyway, all of the major brand manufacturers will stand behind their cameras so don't worry about it. If you are unfortunate enough to have something go wrong, it is only the "luck of the draw" and not a Brand specific event. Now, having said all that, Canon is currently at the top of the heap as far as the "best" camera. Now tomorrow it may be Nikon... or Minolta, or Kodak. And yesterday it was someone else. So don't look for recommendations based on someone's "Favorite" brand. I do, however, have one personal bias that I might mention. I would tend to lean toward those manufacturers that have a long history in photography -- Canon, Nikon, Kodak, etc. Sony is (to my way of thinking) like buying a car from a homebuilder who, last week, branched out into automobile manufacturing. (Now, don't get me wrong. Sony is a fine company and would certainly produce a high quality product but all the same...) So, what's a person to do? Make a list of all the things you expect to do with your camera and all the things needed to do that. (The people on this list have provided you with an impressive list of criteria in the past week to start you off, by the way.) Then select a camera that does all those things AND (big deal!) fits you physically. Beg, borrow, or steal (no, don't do that) one and see if the resulting images are acceptable to you. Then buy that camera. Don't get bogged down in a lot of details or you will never experience the joy that a camera can bring. Ron -----Original Message----- From: Carolyn Rodosta [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 10:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [SP] Digital Camera purchase Thank you, Sally and all the rest of you who have so generously shared your knowledge and experiences with me. Do any of you own a Kodak? They seem to be on sale quite often at the big chains like Circuit City, etc. On Sunday the Circuit City sales lady discouraged me from looking at Sony or Canon. She said they are the most frequently returned brands returned for mechanical problems. She tried steering me towards a Kodak that came with a small printer. Carolyn