What will you be taking pictures of? Friends doing whatever you all do, pictures while bird watching, close-ups of the makeup you just helped someone with? anyway you get the idea.

Now that you know what your main purpose is, will a bulky camera be ok (going to be a pain to carry, but if you just put it on a tripod it may work) or do you need a smaller easy to carry camera?

Now decide what zoom range you want. The small credit card sized cameras have very low zoom capability. You can get a camera that will fit in the pocket of your loose fitting pants though that has a very good zoom.

Mega pixels, this number keeps shooting up, will be wanting 8 x 10 pictures? if so look at mega pixels of 9 and up. If your looking for 5 x 7's a 5 megapixel can work just fine.