Digital Camera beginner - what do I need to know?

[Rhubarb]

I'm thinking of buying a digital camera for dh so would appreciate any links to any cheap good quality ones.

Also, would I need a media/memory card to go with it? What else would I need to buy? How much does it cost to develop digital photos? How much are the films?

Thanks!

You will need a memory card if you want to take many photos as most cameras only have small internal memory. You can source these much more cheaply online than in the shops. You don't need films as all the photos get stored digitally. As for processing you can do this yourself if you have a computer as most cameras come with sonme photo software. I'm not sure how much it would cost to get it done elsewhere.

As for what to get that really depends on how much you want to spend. I've just bought dd the cheapest one Argos do at £33 but its photos are not great. Mine cost £200 when i got it a couple of years ago but its nowhere near as good as the ones you can buy for the same price today. One thing that I foind makes a big difference is making sure you get one with a good amount of optical zoom on it and not just digital zoom. Mine has up to 3x optical but when i get a new one I will definately make sure it has at least 5x.

Ok, so many photos can they store internally? How much does an average memory card cost? As for pc stuff, we have a very crappy printer so does this mean we need to get a printer too? Can you not get them developed in photo shops? This could prove to be more expensive than I can afford tbh!

You can definately get them printed. I think a lot of supermarkets do it. I print ours at home. the printer isn't fab but the photos generally come out ok. AFAIK all you need to do to print them is to put your card in the machine and choose which photos to print and pay for those. Not sure of the cost as I've never used one but I'm pretty sure its quite a lot cheaper than conventional film processing. As for how many photos your camera can store on its internal memory that varies a lot from camera to camera and also on the quality of the photos. For example my dd's camera only has a 2mb memory that can only store 1-2 photos taken on a high quality setting but can store 14-16 on the lowest setting.
You can get cards from less than 10 pounds online depending on which one you need for yuor camera.

Thanks for the info, I'll have to think on it!