I
love love love taking snapshots. I am obsessed with carrying my camera around all the
time. The strength of a small camera is that it is likely to be in your pocket when a good photo presents
itself, instead of sitting in it's nice leather bag at home in your
closet.
I have opted for almost the smallest camera I could get: A Canon s300. It takes 3 megapixel photos, which look amazing printed out to about 5x7 inches (they are 1600x1200). In May, 2001 it was $500 on super-special sale.
This camera is a bit outdated though. I've had it for about 9 months. (amazing). It seems that Canon sells a nicer one now near the same size called a Powershot S40.
More important than the brand, I suggest getting a camera that has specialized batteries, not AAs or something. I guarantee that the batteries are going to be the limiting factor on your photo-outings.
I suggest getting a camera that takes Compact Flash Memory, as this is durable, dependable, and cheap. Smart Flash cards seem to work fine
too ($24 for 64 megs at newegg.com). My 64 meg card holds 103 giant photos and about 700 smaller ones. I assume you will want to take big images and edit them.
If you are looking for a dandy place to get opinions on them, everyone
gives their 2 cents at cnet.com
I like the Canon onboard interface a lot, and I am sure it has stayed the same on the new cameras. The software to get the photos from the camera to my computer was a little clunky, but I have a
$25 USB connected CF card reader now, so it is just drag-n-drop onto my
computer's hard drive.
So, in summary, I recommend a small Canon and 64 megs of ram from newegg.com.