SLR with interchangable lenses, forget about RAW, JPEG is king.
Anything from the Canon stable as they are field leaders.
EOS 300 or Digital Rebel, as our cousins call it is an excellent starter. Possibly outwith your budget. Megapixels is another bogey word. Anything over 4.5 is great.
Trust me!
Edited for :-
Whilst I remember, because of sensor size, this type of camera has a factor of 1.6 when using standard lenses meaning your 200mm telephoto becomes a 320mm. Now that's magic !!
Last edited by El Grifo; 26th Dec 2004 at 14:37.