There are a large number of choices here, they include, The "Agfa Ephoto 1280" will produce images that are very close in quality to the "Nikon Coolpix 900". The "Mavica FD5" wo/zoom or the "FD71" w/zoom will produce acceptable images of most objects. I would recommend a "Nikon Coolpix 900" , or an "Agfa Ephoto 1280", or the even better "1680" I have read a few reviews of the "Nikon 900" and the "Agfa 1680" where they couldn't tell the difference between the images produced by each. All you need is a "Flashpath" floppy disk adapter to make any of the above cameras as easy to use as the Mavica 5 or 7. The images will much higher quality than the Mavicas. Many are quite happy with their Mavicas, the new "FD81" has quite a few refinements, $100 more than the "FD71" but, for a descriminating few they are quite satisfactory. These middle of the road cameras work quite well for most applications. When I look at camera specs. the minimum resolution acceptable to me is 1024 X 768 @ 72 D.P.I., I would prefer 1280 X 1024. The reason for this is that an image of this detail looks much better sized down to 400 X 600 pixels wide/tall. Look at eBays auctions, I saw a AFGA 307 go for $165, did you know this little camera produces 640 X 480 dig. images rivaling the Mavica. Walmart sells inexpensive digital cameras $169. various brands. Most of the pictures these cameras take are acceptable for many uses, but resolution is insufficient for detailed work, such as jewelry close-ups etc.

What about Grabbing a frame of TV video and editing it.

"WinTV" is one card that offers this for $79.

A "Snappy" is another device that grabs a frame of video and digitizes it. Results are somewhat lacking compared to high end boards but, for the price you get your images into your computer for under $100. [No longer supported 1/03]

The prices really dropped on these. Basically they are for 2D objects, although with careful practice you can scan small 3D objects and get good results. Excellent for pictures and books etc.

If you want one unit to handle it all and want to get a camcorder anyway, this does it. Versatile units and when you pause the picture on a digital camera it is held in memory, just like a digital still camera. The information source can be the tape or camera. The resolution from the imager is over 1600 DPI. In the end though, the image resolution is no better than a digital still camera.

If you have an old browser (not an ISP) in which you have all your bookmarks saved and have spent a lot of time learning how to use, and your FTP client program, that you refuse to give up, read no further. Best wishes.

For those that are still reading, you don't need FTP client software to edit your Webpage or upload images. You can go to Netscapes home page and download Communicator 4.5 for "free". This way you can access a modern host without cumbersome FTP things and the like. Of course if you have your images on a FTP host, you can move them if you want.

If you scanned them, in most cases they are already on your hard drive for uploading. When you put your camera images on your hard drive, pay close attention to their location. Once you have your pictures on your hard drive, I would suggest you move all the images you use with a given "photo edit" program into that programs default image sub-directory. For example, I have "Photo Plus 4" that came with my Mustek scanner. When I scan a picture it automatically starts the edit program. After I edit the picture and select "save as" I will give the picture a name (frog.jpg) and select a format (jpeg) and it is saved in MSCAN\DATA\IMAGES. You have to be able to find this file when you want to upload it to your website. When most images are saved, programs like this default to 640 X 480. This is usually too large of a file for most systems to open quickly. I suggest resizing the image in jpeg format(most editing programs will do this, but the feature may be hidden). If your editing program cannot resize the image, download Irfanview.exe, a free image viewing program and use this for resizing.. The size of the image should be small enough that it loads fast without sacrificing too much image detail. An image 240 X 320 is about medium size for most computer screens. You may also be able to set the amount of compression that is used for the saving and further reduce the file size, although this compression will degrade the image quality for further editing. JPEG is nearly the universal image format and can be viewed by nearly any browser and should be your choice for saving the image.

On your auction page where it asks for the image URL, put the picture's location in like this: http://www.angelfire.com/me/yourdirectory/images/frog.jpg repalcing the www.anglefire/com/me/yourdirectory/images/frog.jpg with your image location. This information links the image that you uploaded to your website (or the location that the image hoster gave you) to the eBay auction page.

I hope this gives you a start in the right direction with your images. Before you spend a lot of money on the device to buy, you want think about what you need to use it for. There is no logic in buying a device that performs almost good enough. I always get slightly higher "specs" than I expect to need. This gives me "headroom" within my hardware for performance within my expectations. I would want nothing less for you; hope you expected that.