megapixels

This is one of the greatest cameras you can buy for under $1000 excluding proffesional SLR cameras. When someone goes to a store like Best Buy and looks around for a digital camera I always see people unsure of their product choice as if they don't necessarily know what they are getting and end up with a camera that doesn't hold up to there expectations. However the olympus c-770 will hold up to your expectations and possibly even go beyond your expectations. You may look at the price and think "wow $600? I'm not willing to pay that much for a camera when I can just buy one for $400 or less!(Lets just say the Sony Cyber Shot)." Anyone who thinks that is wrong. If you compare the two cameras you will see a significant price difference and quality difference. The SCS(Sony Cyber Shot) which represents most inexpensive cameras may have alot of the megapixels youve been told about which is good but when you consider other factors contributing to the camera 5 or so mega pixels won't seem a good enough reason to buy it instead of the olympus. A few factors that play its part in a good digital camaera are these few things. Mega pixels(SCS's best version has more than the olympus's c-770[OC])Then you need to consider the type of memory card( SCS has a regular type of memory card and the OC has an XD picture card which increases the storage space significantly and causes the pictures taken to be saved more effeitiently which leads to a better picture(although not noticable until you print the picture at a large size.) Then you consider the zoom(SCS has 4 opticle zoom and 3 digital zoom that comes out to a maximum of 12 zoom, the OC has 10 opticle zoom and 4 digital zoom.) As you can see the OC has much more zoom which is something really important. A more complex thing is the type of picture format which is also very important. Sony's can't reach TIFF format when the OC can. This is very important to the picture. Then comes the focusing. OC is much faster at this and can achieve certain points of focus in even the worst of conditions. After considering all of these things the OC in result can 80% of the time achieve a much better picture. Other things to consider that the OC is better at is it's ease of use, manual controlls, variety of options "including night seen' which alows you to take pictures in any condition, extended flash for more light, looks, reliability, endurance, weight, metal body, the 4 megapixels and finally the ablity to adapt to your skills as you get more and more advanced. BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE ABOUT THIS CAMERA IS THE ABILITY TO TAKE MOVIES! WITH SOUND! I am totaly amazed about these movies. It films in MPEG4 which films with the quality you watch T.V in! Also the sound reciever works fine. Over all I highly recomend this camera! Ignore the price. It's well worth it! "I compared it to the sony cyber shot since that camera is the best a cheap camera can get, I used it to represent all cheap cameras with the SCS's same abilitys or less.Thankyou for reading my review.