My first digital camera

Once I decided to go for a camera, the choice whether to go digital or film was a no-brainer. The only question was which digital camera I should buy. During that time, the prices of digital cameras were still not as low as it is today, and hence buying a digital SLR was somewhat out of question (You know, I was married by then :) Hence I had to go for a Point and Shoot. Since I was itnerested in nature and birds in specific, the long zoom catergaroy was obviously the focus. Now started the next research as happens when you decide to go for a camera. The specs were read and re-read many times, various forums were visited very often, reviews scrutinized heavily, excel sheets were filled with all possible feature comparisons, and at the end, putting all this research aside, I went for the cheapest one at that time - Minolta Dimage Z1.

And the camera has not disappointed me and with time, I fell in love with my "cheap" ultra-zoom. And I also learned that camera brand really may not matter much, but the man behind matters,... yes, that really matters!