I am looking for a digital camera but not sure of what features I need. I know nothing of photography so a lot of summaries and reviews leave me a little clueless. I am a jewelry designer and will mainly be taking close-up pictures indoors. Am I looking for a high-resolution camera with macro-lens, optical zoom, or what? The cameras I'm looking at now are the Olympus D-400Z, the Nikon Coolpix 900 or 950, and the Canon Powershot A5. Am I on the right track?

-- Summer Jensen (summerjensen@hotmail.com), August 24, 1999

Answers

Nikon Coolpix 950 is your best bet.

-- Evgeny Salnikov (evgenys@email.com), August 24, 1999.

Summer, Since you'll be taking mostly closeup pictures of jewelry, I would recommend you to take a look at the Olympus 620L. It's the only single lens reflex digital camera (under $1000) on the market, a definite plus because of the precision in image viewing. It has very good resolution, excellent color, excellent macro capability, external flash sync, and can be fitted with accessory closeup lenses if de

-- Eric Tam (home@erictam.com), August 25, 1999.

I'm with Eric. The SLR approach will be critical if you are shooting mostly macro work. The Oly is a fine piece of equipment too!
Des

-- Dan Desjardins (dan.desjardins@avstarnews.com), August 27, 1999.

Another vote here for the Nikon Coolpix 950!!

-- Peter Damo (pdamo@acay.com.au), August 28, 1999.

I too vote for the Nikon 950. The LCD viewer works as well if not better than SLR. Be sure and have a lot of batteries or a couple sets of rechargeables and a charger.

-- Dave Clark (Daveclark@prodigy.net), September 17, 1999.