Hi Guys,

I'm thinking out-loud here and wonder what you guys think about the following:

You may or may not know, but Sara's camera has been broken for some time. She's planning on mailing it back to me to see if it can be fixed, but I'm not hopeful that it will be cost effective. I was thinking about getting her a new one for her birthday and have been looking online. I could afford to get her a regular inexpensive point and shoot and she could mail the film back home to be developed, which would be the cheapest option and possibly the most reliable.

However, the lure of digital is strong--no processing costs, easier to email pictures or post online, etc. I could not afford to replace her digital camera by myself, but I thought maybe we could go in together. But that might not be a good idea either. She took a Nikon Coolpix 3 meg. with her and planned on saving pictures to disk and sending them home, but not only did her camera break, her disk drive doesn't work either! The pictures she does have, she's saved to a compact flash card and is going to mail that home to Dad, who's going to save the pictures, post them online, and send it back to her to use again. I worry about durability with a digital camera. Things seem to break easily in Africa. If I bought a camera at Best Buy, it would cost more, but I could buy the extended warranty. They'd just replace it if it broke--no questions asked. There are extended warranties online, from $40-60, but usually you have to mail the camera in for repair, which takes significant time and I've read some manufacturers won't even honor their warranties if they think the camera's been dropped or something. But there's an added cost regardless.

As far as which digital camera, I've read that Canon's are durable and the Elphs are very small and easy to carry around, but they're also expensive. Paul has an Elph and loves it--I saw it at my mom's wedding and was impressed by how small and managable it is. I have a Canon A80, which I like a lot too--has a metal body and seems very durable, but bigger and heavier, harder for her to carry around. However, the price is more within reach. I saw Elph 410s for around 360, the A80 was about 270, add an extended warranty and we're talking real money. Both these cameras are 4 megapixals, which I don't think Sara needs. There's a Canon A75, 3 meg, for about 220, like mine on the big side, and a 2 meg. one for about 130, but I thought that wasn't high enough in resolution and had more reliability issues.

And on top of all this, there would be shipping costs to Benin. Makes me want to give up and send her disposable cameras.

So, any of you techies have opinions? A regular point and shoot or digital? If digital, how do you feel about chipping in something? It seems a shame for her to be there and have no way to take any pictures, so I'm going to do something.

Love ya'll,

Mom