Pretty bad when you gotta go to a rabbit forum...for CAMERA advice!

I need to get a new camera - for Art. I love my camera(s) - but Art would like one that he could take when he goes on his cross-country motorcycle trips when he has days off sometimes. He'll hear of really pretty routes and take off to see the scenery, etc. and often wishes he had a camera to take with him.

He is not a camera guy so he needs a pretty simple point and shoot (although he does like the heft of my cameras). I'd like to keep it around $100 or under or maybe a bit over. It will ride in his backpack when he's on the bike - meaning it might get bounced around a little bit unless I get him a small camera bag or something like that.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Peg

I recently got a Sony Cybershot, and I love it! It takes really good pictures and HD video, it's a very basic point and shoot and pretty sturdy as I've dropped mine a couple times. I'm not sure of the price as it was a b-day present but I think it was under 100 dollars.

Ive had great results with my canon powershot. You can get a variety of levels in this model from cheap to more expensive, I think I had the cheapy one. That thing was dropped every chance I got, took great pics, was easy to use, etc etc. Was basicly just shoved in my purse and went wherever I went so it got pretty trashed. I actually got it to be my "disposable" camera so I didn't wreck my SLR. Its still alive today and is taking great pics still, but I managed to do something to the shutters on it (Ive had it for years now) so they fell off and I use a piece of paper with tape to cover the lense when not in use.

Well, of course that's what the Camera Corner is for...

There are some point-n-shoots which are supposed to be ruggedized and water resistant. I bought a Fuji version last year to have something which wouldn't be affected by Scottish rain. To be honest, I wasn't really very happy with it. The waterproofing was OK, and it seemed rugged enough, but I wasn't impressed by its operation or picture quality. It's on deployment in Afghanistan with my son now.

I replaced it with a Nikon Coolpix S4200, which cost about $79 at WalMart, to have a camera to carry around and use at a Cub Scout photography belt loop activity I did. It's not ruggedized or waterproof, but it fits easily in my pocket and the picture quality is acceptable (barely - no point-n-shoot will ever approach the image quality of a DSLR, and you get spoiled).

In the end, as with any camera, the best advice is to pick a real camera company and try several until you find one you can use instinctively. I like Nikon, and have yet to find one where I needed the manual for ordinary things, while I have yet to use anything made by Olympus which I could figure out. Their design logic is just foreign to me. Others feel the same about Canon as I do about Nikon - For quality, there's no real difference, it's just what is most comfortable.

Btw, Sony isn't usually thought of as a camera company, and their older stuff wasn't all that good. However, a few years ago they bought Konica/Minolta and recent reports I've heard have been that their cameras aren't bad, if not as consistent as the first tier manufacturers Nikon and Canon.