The Olympus D-490 that Tom T mentions is excellent. Bought mine in November - you'll need a bigger memory card than the dinky 8MB one that comes with it (I got a 32MB one)and the FlashPath floppy adaptor to save messing about wiring it up to the PC (and eating batteries unless you use a mains adapter). The whole thing is small and neat and almost pocketable. Optical zoom range is good. It is very battery hungry, but I run it on rechargeable alkalines and it does just fine. 2.1 megapixels is fine. I use it for clinical work and the quality is more than good enough. The little built-in flash is reasonable, which is a good thing as there isn't a hotshoe for a real one. It won't do EXTREME closeups (and it won't accept macro fittings), but I get by. It does a good job of adapting to different colour tempaeratures and even takes a decent piture under fluorescents. Skin tones are good. Does behave a bit differently from an analog camera, but you get used to it fairly quickly. It hasn't let me down yet - ask me again in 6/12. What with the bits and bobs and the service/maintenance contract I paid near enough 600GBP. Which will be a very good deal if it goes on working.....