Can you reccomend an inexpensive camera with threaded lens to enable use of a polarizing filter and manual (match needle) exposure metering for my first digital camera? How many megapixel is necessary to give emailable exposures that will be 300 dpi for magazine publishing? T'anks, eh?

If you want a 300 PPI 8 X 10 without a resample you would need an 8Mp camera. You could probably upsample a smaller image to 300 PPI with a good filter or program like Genuine Fractals so that a 5 or 6Mp imagemight be acceptable.

There are too many cameras with manual exposure and threaded lenses to make a guess what you are looking for without refining your requirements some.

Thanks Slipe... You can gather that I don't have much expertise here. I had just decided to bite the bullet and spend a bit more than I'd wanted for the Panasonic DMC-FZ7 @ $369 when my local Costco got them back in stock.. but it's just 6 megapixel. The magazine I was submitting to told me they needed the 300DPI. My shots would be of surf and windsurfers on the beach and close to shore. If I need the 8mpx to avoid software adjustments and further learning curve, I guess I should. Got a favorite of the least difficult to use in that catagory?

p.s. I miss Florida fish and fishing. Maui's fish are usually $15 a pound raw!

Now I'm looking toward the Panasonic DMC-FZ30. Can I shoot, download with USB to my laptop and send to magazine in 300dpi? Will there be any difficulties/limitations emailing this size? How big a file does this represent. Free windsurf lessons on Maui for answering these beginner questions..(ha, ha)