Ron,
I have owned numerous Digital Cameras over the past 10 years. I have tried Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Kodak - basically you name it. I have varied in price ranges from 300-2500 in purchases.
Here is my take.
It really depends on what you are looking for. Of all the cameras I have owned, I prefer CANON. The ease of use, plus the availability of manual settings on their cameras is the best.
For normal, everyday picture taking - 5 megapixels is the max you would need to go to. Anything over that is overkill unless you plan on printing out billboards of your pens or other photos.
Recommendation: I just bought my wife a new digital camera for Christmas. I bought her the new CANON SD450. I tested out about 20 current models of various brands before selecting this one. It is by far the hands down winner in functionality and quality. Although the camera is TINY (one of my wife's requirements), it packs a punch of the full size competitors. It's 9 point auto-focus is ranked the highest in the business and it's macro settings are unbelievable and easy to use. It also features Canon's new "digital macro" which automatically adjusts all settings for best macro picture.
Just my input but you can pick this camera up new for about $350 and it is the best deal out there. Only downfall is that it only comes with a 16GB card which only holds about 10 pictures. I purchased a 1 GB card for about 75$ that I shoot on which is more than enough. Also, my battery has lasted for over 2 hours of constant shooting in both photo and video mode.
Here is a couple samples of some of the test macros I shot today. Check out the little bitty bug on the red flower!!!
www.pen-turners.com/test2.jpg
www.pen-turners.com/test1.jpg
Just my suggestion but hope it helps.
Chris