CARNIVAL OF THE DIGITAL CAMERAS: I’m going to host one. Put up your digital-camera posts and send me a link by Tuesday night — with the subject line “Digital Camera Carnival” or it may get buried — and I’ll put together a post on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, people are asking me questions about digital cameras. I’ve loved the photos from my Nikon D70 (now replaced by the D70s model) but I’ve had autofocus problems with mine, though that doesn’t seem to be a widespread phenomenon. There’s also a battery recall, which kind of bugs me — I bought Nikon because I expected high reliability. If you’re starting fresh, without any legacy lenses, you may want to go with Canon instead as they seem to have had fewer problems.

Sticking with Nikon for the moment, for most people I think the cheaper D50 is good a choice, and you can put the savings toward more lenses. If you like Canon, you can’t go wrong with the Digital Rebel or the fancier EOS 20D.

Among compact cameras, the Sony DSC-W7 is 7 megapixels, shoots video, and uses AA batteries. I believe it’s what Pajamas Media is sending its correspondents in Iraq and elsewhere. It’s pretty much the newer, fancier version of the Sony I’ve used for blog pix and video.

Going cheaper (under $200), this Samsung camera looks really cool: 5 megapixels, 30fps full-frame video — with stabilization — and even in-camera video editing. All for under $200. I haven’t used one, but on paper at least, it looks like the perfect blog-journalism camera: Capable, small, and cheap enough that you’re not afraid to take it out and use it. (It uses AA batteries, too, which I favor since if the rechargeables die you can pretty much always find AA alkalines).

Well, that’s my advice for now. But let’s put the blogosphere to work and see what other people say — send those carnival entries in!