Connie, the coolpix 990 and the Nikon 5700 were very good for color and excellent for macro pix. I used a Nikon coolpix S4 for a while and I was not happy with it. Used a Canon SX130 series digital for a while (not that great). My go-to cameras are a Canon S90 and S95 digital (very compact and pocketable), which I have used for thousands of pix. I occasionally make use of a Panasonic micro 4/3 with either a 30mm macro lens (60mm full frame equivalent), or a 20mm f1.7 very compact lens that allows it to be pocketable (with large cargo pockets). To my eye the Panasonic is not as good for color as the better Nikon or Canon digital cameras.
I take many pix with white cross ID tags in the pic and I can use this for later color/white
balancing of the photo if needed.
Dave, There is so much out there in the way of digital cameras, and I agree that it can be daunting.
A few years ago I picked up a coolpix 990 and coolpix 995 in pretty much unused/new condition on e-bay for less than $30 each. Not the easiest cameras to use and the display on these is small, but these originally sold for $900 each, and you can see in my earlier posts to this thread the quality of photos they produce.
Below is a 2004 photo taken with a Nikon 5700 digital. Note the white ID tag that could be used to white balance later if needed.
Photo quality is excellent but the Nikon 5700 was an awkward large camera to use.
For me the best camera is one that I can always have with me in the garden. Collecting pollen and doing crosses along with taking pictures is multi-tasking, and I can't do this with a larger camera.
