Mostly depends on two things. One is what you are using it for. Two, What are you going to do with the pictures when you are done.

I have a Nikon Coolpix 990 which I bought before my trip to Vegas, Last year. The pictures that it took are stunning. While the camera is a 3+ mega-pixel I have never fully utilized that. I prefer to take pictures at 1024 x 768. This image size will easily yield me 8 x 10 prints with no degredation to the image. I have never tried an 11 x 14 since my printer doesn't support that size. I understand though that the images would only minorly be degraded. It goes like this. You can take large images and make them smaller with no problem. However, if you take a small picture and try to enlarge it too much it can look like crap.

If your wife is going to use the camera for posting pictures of properties on the web or in newspaper ads she probably doesn't need a lot of megapixels. If she is going to be making prints to put into presentation or sales folders than she will want something better so she can get a good 8 x 10. Then there is the issue of having manual capabilities that will allow you to over-ride the camera in difficult situations where auto exposure might not work. LV lights and stage shows etc. is an example. If you are close to a sign or marquee you will be fine but if you are a little away, the camera(on automatic) may think the picture is darker than it really is and overexpose or fire a flash that will ruin the picture.

My camera uses CompactFlash(CF). On my recent trip to LV I took 170 pictures(jpg) on a 64meg card at 1024 x 768. The memory cards are expensive but with one or two in your bag you can take a lot of pics with no problem. When you get home save them on a Zip Disk or CD and then re-format the card and reuse it. In two years now I have taken 1400+ pictures with this camera and have not had to pay for Processing or Film. While this particular camera may be overkill for your needs I have been very happy with mine since it has the versatility to do just about anything you need to do. I have, as I said, used it for vacation pics and have used to photograph valuables for insurance. I even used it to photograph every chip in my collection. The beauty of it is if I want enlargements I can use a Large file size but if I am photographing chips I can use 640 x 480. I can use it for Web Thumbnails or Framed enlargements.

Hope this helps,

Bill