Happy Early Mother's Day

Happy Mom's day to all you loving ladies out there! I am pleased to say I received my mother's day gift a little early - a nice Winsor & Newton Easel from DickBlick (my VERY favorite store!) I can't wait to use it.

Now I have a question - especially for those of you who photograph your art. My mother offered to get me a digital camera for my birthday to make it easier to photograph my paintings. I've been reviewing some threads on Wetcanvas about digital cameras and am pretty sold on the Nikon Coolpix - the L3 is 5 megapixels w/ 3x optical zoom. It's about $200. But while I was getting groceries I stopped at the photo department of the evil W and saw a Kodak EasyShare z740 - which is also 5megapixels, but with 10x optical zoom. It was on sale for about $250. So for those in the know...

Does the quality of the coolpix override the greater zoom of the Kodak? Or should I choose the Kodak? I haven't heard much from artists about Kodak, while I've heard some positive comments about Nikon... HELP! Advice is much appreciated.