>>1248304Get a good weather sealed camera if you'll be doing lots of outdoor stuff. It pays off in the long run. All camera companies completely void your warranty is they suspect any water damage. Point and shoot cameras are great for general photography, but being able to change lenses on the other ones does open up a lot of options from extreme macro to telescope level photography.
For a general beginner to outdoor photography, I recommend a, "Ricoh Wg-20 ". It is water proof to 10 meters/32.8 feet, shockproof from 1.5 meters/5 feet, cold proof to -10C/14F, crushproof 100kgf/20psf 14 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, microscope mode, anti-shake protection, and shoots 1280 x 720 30fps video. They cost anywhere from $200 to $350 depending on where you buy it, if you can find it for cheaper than $300 that is.
http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/products/wg-20/feature/Keep in mind that I don't own one of these. I own a Nikon D3400 with like a dozen lenses that I can't take out in the rain without a rain bag over it. I still love it though. When I trade up from my D3400, I'll be getting something very water/weather proof from Pentax/Ricoh and a bunch of lenses for it. Though, that would be well over $1.5k.
