New Guy here

[JGoslee]

Hello everyone. Im new to this site and also new to photography. Was wondering if I could get some suggestions on digital camera's. I have large Central American cichlids and would love to be able to get good pics of them. Im looking to spend around $400 dollars. Any help would be great. Thanks.
-Jesse

 

[phishphorphun]

Welcome aboard Jesse. You will learn a lot about equipment and technique on this site...guranteed.

Your current budget gets you into a fairly nice point and shoot type dig camera. There are so many out there that you are going to have to start by deciding what esential features you will need for the type of photography you will be spending most of your time doing.

I would go to the Photography Hardware board in the forums menu here. Browse through there for a few days and you will probably gather a lot of basic data for your research.

Now with all that said, I think you will find many of us here have gotten into the Digital SLR cameras. Your entire budget is the average price for just a good lens for that type of camera. Speaking for myself. I used a Kodak Easyshare five megapixel p&s for about a year before I bought the Nikon D70. It is a great camera with a lot of good features and is very user friendly. I liked it so much (it's actually my wife's) I bought my daughter one last Christmas. It was in the $350 range.

Good luck.