Not sure if this is the best sub-forum, but I wasn't sure where to post.

I'm looking for a digital camera. I haven't owned one in years. The last one I had was a Sony Cybershot 3.1 MPixel camera that I bought in... 2004? I think that's when I got it. Anyways, it died about a year ago and I have been out of the market for a long time and now I'm looking for a new one. I'm posting on the Ubuntu forums because the absolute most important thing is that I can easily transfer stuff to my linux machines. If a camera uses a proprietary Windows program to transfer files then it's a waste of money for me. I would assume that any camera nowdays will use a standard media card of some type or have a standard "USB hard drive mode" so you can plug it in like a flash drive... but you never know.

In particular, I'm looking for a nice point-and-shoot camera that also supports taking 720p video with audio. It would be nice if the video size is only limited by the size of your memory card and it would be great if I could take 10 minute videos because I think that's the limit for newer Youtube accounts.

I intend to use the camera in the great outdoors. I am a backpacker and mountain biker and I also volunteer with the Forest Service clearing trail. I live in the Pacific NW in an area that straddles the mountains with the high desert. If I travel 1 hour in any direction I could be in very dusty, sandy, and dry environments or I could be in extremely wet, humid environments. I might be taking pictures of mountain bikers splashing through mud and I need to know the camera won't fall apart from the shock of me riding my mountain bike across 30 miles of rough terrain while jumping over logs. So it does need to be able to handle a decent level of shock, dust, water, etc but not fully waterproof. My understanding is that fully waterproof cameras have poor image quality.

The other thing to mention is that I have a netbook with an SD/SDHC card slot. I like this memory type because it's a common standard. I'm not a fan of Memory Stick/Pro/Duo's.

Lastly, although it needs to be linux-compatible I'm not a stickler for "open source video CODECS". If I can get a CODEC from medibuntu that allows me to load up videos from the camera I'm fine.


Does anybody have any suggestions?