You have a plethora of choices nowadays but in reality your decision is usually based around the purpose or use of the equipment, If your intention is to do occasionally shooting, many 4-5 megapixel camera will do.
A fully-featured Kodak digital camera intrigued me- partly due to its price of approximately $300 Canadian and I found last-years model being cleared at
1/3 less (you can generally expect to pay $100 for each megapixel and up) and the features- small but affordable SD card, supplementary hard drive (very few other digital cameras have this back-up for when you run out of memory space on your storage card) and an excellent German lens/optics system.
Here are some Kodak choices: Kodak EasyShare C340 Storage media: Integrated Memory,SD Memory Card, Supplied memory size: 16 MB, Optical zoom: 3 x, Sensor resolution: 5.4 Megapixels, Viewfinder type: Optical viewfinder, Weight: 145 g, Digital zoom: 5 x Digital Camera Kodak Kodak EasyShare C360 Storage media: Integrated Memory,SD Memory Card, Supplied memory size: 32 MB, Optical zoom: 3 x, Sensor resolution: 5.1 Megapixels, Viewfinder type: Optical viewfinder, Weight: 150 g, Digital zoom: 5 x Digital Camera Kodak Kodak EasyShare P850 Storage media: Integrated Memory,SD Memory Card, Supplied memory size: 32 MB, Optical zoom: 12 x, Sensor resolution: 5.1 Megapixels, Viewfinder type: Electronic viewfinder, Weight: 403 g, Digital zoom: 3.3 x Digital Camera Kodak Kodak EasyShare V530 Storage media: Integrated Memory,SD Memory Card, Supplied memory size: 16 MB, Optical zoom: 3 x, Sensor resolution: 5 Megapixels, Viewfinder type: Fixed eye level pentamirror, Weight: 130 g, Digital zoom: 4 x Digital Camera Kodak Kodak EasyShare V550 Storage media: Integrated Memory,SD Memory Card, Supplied memory size: 32 MB, Optical zoom: 3 x, Sensor resolution: 5 Megapixels, Viewfinder type: Electronic viewfinder, Weight: 143 g, Digital zoom: 4 x Digital Camera Kodak Kodak EasyShare Z730 Storage media: SD Memory Card, Supplied memory size: 32 MB, Optical zoom: 4 x, Sensor resolution: 5 Megapixels, Viewfinder type: Optical viewfinder, Weight: 224 g, Digital zoom: 4 x Digital Camera Kodak Kodak EasyShare Z740 Storage media: Integrated Memory,MultiMedia Card,SD Memory Card, Supplied memory size: 32 MB, Optical zoom: 10 x, Sensor resolution: 5.36 Megapixels, Viewfinder type: Optical viewfinder, Weight: 287 g, Digital zoom: 5 x Digital Camera Kodak Kodak EasyShare Z7590 Storage media: Integrated Memory,SmartMedia Card, Supplied memory size: 32 MB, Optical zoom: 10 x, Sensor resolution: 5 Megapixels, Viewfinder type: Optical viewfinder, Weight: 350 g, Digital zoom: 3 x Digital Camera Kodak Kodak EasyShare CX 7525 Storage media: MultiMedia Card,SD Memory Card, Optical zoom: 3 x, Sensor resolution: 5 Megapixels, Weight: 178 g, Digital zoom: 5 x Digital Camera Kodak Kodak EasyShare CX 7530 Storage media: Integrated Memory,MultiMedia Card,SD Memory Card, Supplied memory size: 32 MB, Optical zoom: 3 x, Sensor resolution: 5 Megapixels, Viewfinder type: Optical viewfinder, Weight: 190 g, Digital zoom: 5 x
However, if you ready for some more professional shooting, and you are used to the Canon AE-1 already, why not look at the latest Canon or Nikon range of digital SLRs. I own a Canon Digital Rebel (6.3 Megapixel) and Digital Rebel XT (8 Megapixel) since I do professional work as a writer/editor for a magazine. You will pay approximately $1000.00 for each- go for the Rebel XT (1/3 lighter, faster and higher resolution than its earlier predecessor).I also suggest that because it not a far stretch for a former Canon user to simply upgrade. (I still have 5 AE-1s, 3 EOSs and a multitude of lenses, flashes and accessories left over; another advantage to staying in one line is the interchangeability of many of these components.)