Well, the manual that came with my Canon G11 was surprisingly good. Wondering what brand of camera you bought.

it's a Sony Cyber-shot. It was a gift. (I had mentioned that it would be nice to have a digital camera.)

Not being able to eat?

I've been through both of those and I'm going to have to say the camera was worse. However, it has easier solutions and needn't last as long.

here's a site that might get ya started . i use to have a sony camera and it was excellent and very easy to use. my advice is to just spend a few days experimenting with all the different settings until you figure out for yourself what is what (and in a pinch sony's automatic settings are excellent)

I just got a Canon D10 myself, and the manual is great.

I agree that Sony's documention needs work -- I also spent some time this weekend trying again to figure out how to turn off my Sony Walkman W series headphones, which are great for running when they aren't dead as a doornail. Go slowly and you can figure it out. But SLOWLY is the key.

I love the simplicity of my old olympus om-1 SLR camera. manual focus, shutter, aperature... with a meter to guide exposure. I've had 2 digital cameras, and never really got used to the stupid menu system and myriad buttons. I probably only use 1% of the features on my nikon D40.

OK, how about just this simple question...if I happen to take a godawful picture, how do I delete it? I followed the instructions on how to delete (there's even a garbage can icon on my camera), but I still see all the pictures I took. Does "delete" really mean "it's still there" in Cameraland?

Delete should mean delete. On both of my cameras I have to confirm a deletion - which could mean pressing the garbage can button again or an 'enter' button. Maybe that's the case for you?

Yes, I think delete should delete it completely (after confirming). But don't listen to me as I gave up on my digital camera. I just use my iPhone now because it's always with me and it's dead easy.

Now if I could just figure out how to change the time on my digital watch. I swear that thing drives me crazy twice a year when the time changes. The combination of little buttons makes no sense. All I've managed to do so far is turn the alarm on (again .. now I need to figure out how to turn it off). Hey - I should buy another watch and just have them permanently set to the daylight or standard time and just change the watch I'm wearing!

OK, I did figure out how to delete. You just have to get out of Easy Mode first. But then why does it pretend to let you delete in Easy Mode? geez!