Here is New York Times' David Pougue's e-mail of May 3rd to "me".... sharing just with "you" with only pertinent information related to your question... Pogue's Picks I don't know how the other Times columnists keep up with all their reader e-mail, but I'll tell you how I handle mine: with great difficulty. I try to answer pretty much all of it, thanks to some kind of weird Midwestern sense of obligation. Lots of people want help troubleshooting this or that computer or Web server; I have a macro that politely explains that I don't know the answer. Lots of them, too, ask what camera/camcorder/computer/whatever they should buy. That's a crazy question, because there are so many models and so many people with different priorities. Still, if someone forced me to declare a winner in every category - for example, if they threatened to make me live in Internet Explorer 1.0 for the rest of my life if I refused - I think I'd come up with a Best list that looks like this. Best Small Camera: Canon SD800IS. The IS stands for "image stabilizer," which makes an absolutely enormous difference. It saves about 90 percent of the low-light photos that would otherwise have been ruined by blur. To make matters even better, this camera ($305) offers a 3.8X zoom - better than the 3X on most pocket cams. It also offers face recognition software that properly exposes and focuses on people in your scene. Although no pocket cam eliminates shutter lag altogether, this camera comes very close. And 7.1 megapixels is exactly enough. Oh, and one more thing: it takes fantastic photos. Best Amateur SLR: Nikon D40. This camera is small, like Canon's Digital Rebel, but it doesn't pinch your right fingertips like the Rebel does. The price is amazing ($530) considering everything you get: fast startup, zero shutter lag, fast autofocus, big sensor, spacious and bright viewfinder, big screen. Note that for $200 more, you can get the new D40X, which has a faster burst mode (3 frames per second vs. 2.5) and more megapixels - 10 instead of 6.1 - if you're into that sort of thing.