John,

I have a Canon A80 Powershot that will probably work very well for you in your price range. It fits in your pocket, takes neat little movies, and makes great 4mb photos that look super even at 8x10 on a good photo printer. Only drawbacks for chip pics is that the autofocus isn't perfect and the colors need adjusted in a photo editor.

If you really want to go whole hog like I did, a Canon Digital Rebel is fabulous, but costly. It is larger, tho, and doesn't take movies, but can make pics that look like this in auctions ....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6129000325

Good luck and happy chipping and pic taking !!!!