We are going to buy our daughters an SLR Digital camera and take their senior picutres with them and then give them the camera in lieu of spending a ton of bucks on a photography studio doing it. Can you recommend an SLR for this purpose?

Hey Jeff,
Still need help? If so a few more details will make it easier to find you the right camera. Let me know what price range you're in and what kind of features you want or pictures you'd like to take. Thanks!

Brenda,
I suppose we'd go from $300 to maybe $600. We'd be wanting to take still shots immediately. After taking the senior pictures it would be given to our daughter who is entering college for general use. She has taken some photography classes in HS and may explore photography some more in college.

Jeff

Since your daughters are probably going off to college. Perhaps you may want to look at something very portable. The best thing to do about senior pics is not to wait until that last minute. If they are in a regular school then the school will have some requirements for their yearbooks to have the pic submitted. Usually must have shot of just face, etc. and usually can even require dress regulations. Our school also requires a black and white for the paper. They offer pics taken at the school and then you can look at them and if you don't like them you pay nothing. (Just in case all goes bad) But hopefully you won't have any problems. Remember - try to catch them doing more natural things that you or they want to remember. You can always add in some items that have meaning, like a certain stuffed animal, necklace, or scenic spot.

I'll add several more SLRs to the mix, since I think only the 30D has come up so far:
Nikon D40 -- a cool new Nikon oriented toward people learning photography, Canon Rebel 400D -- the cheaper cousin of the 30D Brenda recommended (a totally great camera by all accounts), the Pentax K110D or Sony a100 -- both have image stabilization built in so you can buy much less expensive lenses. But all of these are real SLR cameras: fast, high quality and good for real photography.

Hi Jeff... I'll give you some advice. First of all, you should know the diferences between a DSRL and a point & shoot (even with manual controls). There are two types of customers... the ones who want a small and cool device, take nice pics, and just have fun and the ones who don't care if the camera is big, if the lenses are big too, but they care a lot about response and image quality. Of course, these last ones, are more expensive... but you are getting much more from each buck you spend. The tecnical differences are: a much bigger sensor (like 7 or 8 times) what makes more light pass to each pixel, and make more vivid images; image procesors, that are the ones which convert the image in digital information (let's say that the worst SRL is at least better than the best point & shoot); response (SRL are on in 0,2 secs... don't expect that from a point & shoot). But, the SRL are not that comfortable... with almost any of them, you cannot take pics with the LCD, and are in some cases up to 6 or 7 bigger cameras.
I will recomend you cameras from $400, and up to $700... despite you said $600. Why? Because SRL prices start at $500... so you don't have too many of them by that price. The average, is around $800 and $1500.

Recomended Point & Shoot:
* Canon Powershot G7
* Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ5
* Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1
* Ricoh Caplio R5
* Samsung NV7 OPS
* Samsung S850

This ones, are point & shoot cameras... but they are kind of small. You also have those with ultra versatile lenses, but much bigger. Some of the bests are:
* Samsung Pro815 (with 15x lenses, and a decent sensor)
* Panasonic FZ30 (you also have the FZ50, but you should know that there's almost any difference between 8 and 10 mp, than the $100 extra bucks) I would recomend THIS ONE!
* Kodak P880
* FujiFilm FinePix IS-1

SRL's I recomend for the price:
* Pentax K100 (or K110... the difference is the image stabilization)
* Nikon D40
* Canon Rebel XT EOS 350 D

To decide between these three, you should first know some things about them:
1º Pentax K100 was the surprise in the last photography event of 2006. It has even better picture quality than the Nikon D50, and it has shift sensor image stabilization.
2º The Nikon D40 is the last release of Nikon, and it's made to compete with the Pentax. The image quality is slightly better (let's say that the throne was for the Nikon D50, until the Pentax K100 was lounched to the market, and they just released the Nikon D40 that has some better end details, but there are almost no differences). BUT! this camera doesn't have a built in autofocus... so you have to buy every lens with it's own autofocus system, which makes them more expensive. Much more... if you want image stabilization... you will have to buy much more expensive lenses, when the K100 comes with it.
3º There's no difference between 6 and 8 mp. But much more... this is the most expensive of the three, and Canon is well known for bad quality kit lenses... so you will have to buy extra lenses. This one doesn't come with image stabilization neither.

My opinion: buy the K100 camera body, and then look for lenses around 120 and 200 bucks. Sigma is a very good brand for the price you pay them. Look for versatility, something like 18-90 mm, or 28-120... or even more. I've done that.

Hope this helps you to find the best camera for you and your daughter, and I expect you to post in the future what you bought, and how pleased you are.
Alan.