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After reading every review we could find, we ventured for the first time into the digital photographic world purchasing the Olympus 340-R digital camera. We were definitely not disappointed. After just a few days the camera accompanied us to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Seoul, S. Korea, while we nervously left our Canon SLR at home. The camera performed marvelously. We found the optional 16MB flash memory card more than adequate for our needs, as we easily downloaded photos each day into our laptop. We were amazed at the quality of photos even in low light settings. We took shots at our conference including a multimedia presentation where surprisingly the projected image on the screen was readable! While staying in the countryside in a traditional Mongolian "ger" (tent), we shot an incredible photo of the predawn sky-- even the morning stars are clearly distinguishable! Arriving home we were completely satisfied with the photos shot at the low resolution setting when printed out on our HP Deskjet 895 using an Epson photographic paper. I doubt that most people would be able to tell the difference between the prints and a standard developed snapshot. The enclosed Olympus and Adobe software is easy to use and functional for most home use. You will absolutely love the Quickstitch utility that simply creates oversized and panorama shots! One of the only weaknesses we found a little frustrating was the variance between the optical viewfinder and the digital one. If you frame... say, a head and shoulders shot in the optical viewfinder, you will discover that digitally the camera sees a much broader area. Olympus should do a little better job calibrating the two viewfinders. Apart from that, you will want to invest in the NiMH charger and at least 8 batteries-- shop around for the best price. Also, picking up a 3.5 inch floppy adapter for the flash memory card will be a big time saver. You simply pull out the flash memory card, slip it into the adapter, and then slide the floppy into any computer. You'll save time and frustration over having cords laying all around your table, plus a significant download time. One last item-- Do you think a 16MB memory card will be too small for your needs? Olympus, through their website, is offering an inexpensive upgrade through the end of December that will allow the camera to use the new 32MB memory cards.