Bob, I've had some experiences with young photographers after buying my oldest an autofocus Vivitar P&S at age 6 or so. (I gave him my 3 megapixel Sony earlier this year, but he turns 25 on Sunday.)
Today, I would pick up a used 1 to 3 megapixel P&S digital. It need not have a zoom lens. My brand of preference is Sony, but whatever you can find is good. 3 megapixel will be more than enough quality for 4x6 inch prints, and the computer skills they learn will be appropriate as well. Get a thumb drive and they can take their pictures with them! Regards, Bob S. Bob W. writes: > I take quite a lot of photographs of and with 2 young friends of mine, > aged 8 (well, 7 and 359 days) and 11, who also like to borrow my cameras > (supervised). Apart from the nerve-wracking aspects of such young children > using expensive cameras that are far too large and heavy for them, I'm not > massively keen on the cost of processing so many out-of-focus, shaky photographs > of nothing in particular. The girls are far too energetic, impatient and > rebellious to listen to me for as long as it would take to teach them about > focusing etc. > > It occurs to me that a small, light digital camera with a zoom lens, > autofocus and autoexposure would be ideal to lend them when we go out > together 'tooled up', so to speak. > > I am entirely unfamiliar with the digital camera market. Does anybody > have any suggestions, please, for something like that - probably a > p&s - that's cheap and can produce reasonable quality > prints (when required) up to about 4x6" (10x15cm).
