personally you want something along the lines of a Canon Ixus or a Fuji
one downside to Fuji compaired to Canon is the memory cards,
Canon - SD card ie 512mb card = £15
Fuji - XD card ie 512mb card = £30 - £40
Both manufactuers have amazing lenses and easy to use menus, if you buy a 'what camera' magazine it will really confuse you so have a browse on the net for some good reviews, or get the reviews off amazon. You idealy need to weigh up the fact that if you want a viewfinder or not this will effect the size of the camera, its best to have one just incase batteries run out.
Talking about batteries, moving from different cameras, Fuji, Sony, Olympus and Canon are the main manufacturers that make thier own batteries. Some of these makes charge them up using a cradle (Cannon) and some like sony dont.
If you have a camera which runs on normal AA batteries i would recommend getting 2400Mah rechargable batteries,if you use normal AA batts they wont last a day, i personally have a 2 year old Pentax camera which runs on SD (nice and cheap but quick to access the photos) and two AA batts, so i can go out for a full day and take two spare batteries with me just in case. I used my camera for going out and photographing people having a good time and me and my friend have made numerous nightlife websites so SD is great for viewing photos instantly. There are LOADS of things to think about but the main ones are :-
- Screen size (bigger screen will suck a little more batt juice)
- Mega pixel (5mp and above is mint)
- Re-chargable battery (some makes like Fuji sometimes give you two batts)
- Media type (SD, XD, MS, CF etc)
- Optical zoom (all are minimum 3x going up to 6x, then onto 20x with SLR's)
- Funtionality (i would recommend going to Dixons for example and playing with the cameras first)
- Extras included,makes like Fuji and Casio give you a docking station for you pc and tv, do you get a 32mb card to start you off ? 90% of camera's come with usb cables and tv connect cables these days
- Video record/playback, some cameras are limited to how long you can record for and some dont do sound, this one is a personal preference but nice to have.
- Viewfinder, makes a difference to the size of camera
- Body of camera, the best type of body to go for is metal, mainly because if you drop it metal doesnt crack unlike plastic.
I Hope i havnt confused you but i know few things bout picking the right camera for people because i used to work at Dixons.
Happy Birthday btw
