Thanks for the camera advice. I love Canon and was planning on going with them. I started with my dad's old Canon FX (1967 vintage, but expensive then). It took great pictures, but the light meter & flash were gone and it was manual focus. In '98 we bought a Canon EOS Elan which is an amazing camera and can do more than I have figured out. I almost always use it on the manual settings. But I think its time to breakdown and go digital...

I'm definitely with you about being comfortable. It's enough to lug a camera and a purse without adding a camera bag to the mix. And I'm with the professional photographers - why drag out all those beautiful people and then put them in horrifying light? Probably some peon in a cubicle made the decision without much thought. *grumble*

Do you ever get tired of replying to people? Because you do generate quite the stir every time you post anything...