With that said - digital is a great tool - especially since most digital CCDs nowadays are capable of seeing well into the infrared spectrum regardless of the lighting conditions. Just remember that, as with any technique, there are pros and cons that the operator needs to be aware of.

I am finding that digital cameras offer way more "false positives" than they do legitimate evidence. My camera however does have the ability to be manually controlled in the same manner that 35MM SLRs do ie: aperture and shutter speed. The problem is that anytime you get into slower shutter speeds you need to use a tripod and timer or cable release which effectively ends your ability to freelance and snap pictures randomly.

I do tend to look much more heavily at the audio as well as video evidence. As I get more and more experience I find that digital video is a great tool. It has all the advantages that digital photography does but it doesn't suffer from the negative side-effects of the flash.

The problem is that a good 3-CCD DV cam with night-shot and steady shot is going to run you well over $1000. My Sony is by no means top-of-the-line and it is worth almost $1500.

Back in the day of analog recording and film photography we needed to know how our equipment worked - and not just know how to focus a camera or push record on a tape deck. We needed to understand the processes BEHIND how the equipment worked. Let's face it - someone who doesn't know anything about photography can't pick up a manual SLR and shoot Ansel Adams quality photos. Low-light situations are impossible unless you UNDERSTAND things like aperture settings, shutter speeds, film speeds, etc.

So why is all this important? Because back in the days before digital wizardry there were FAR LESS false positives. The evidence was gathered by people who knew the equipment, knew the processes and most importantly, knew the problems and limitations. Nowadays anyone with a Sony Cybershot can snap off pictures of dust and moisture orbs like there is no tomorrow. The very thing that originally made a digital camera so useful is what ultimately became its biggest negative attribute (That being the flash and its inherent low-light functionality).

Brian from CPR made a comment in another thread about where most of the historically significant paranormal evidence has come from. It hasn't been from digital photography or DVR recordings or digital voice recorders. It has come from old-school film-based photography and analog recordings. That right there says it all. In the 150 years since photography became commonplace we have gone from huge glass plates hand painted with silver nitrate all the way to CCD digital imaging devices the size of credit cards. The digital era has stormed up only in the past 15 years and even with all of the breakthroughs and cutting edge stuff I have yet to see the caliber of evidence that was found up until about 20 years ago.

So where am I going with all this? I recently had someone tell me they wanted to get into paranormal investigation and they wanted a recommendation on a digital camera. My advice to them was to scrap the idea, buy a used manual or semi-auto 35MM SLR camera and get the biggest book they could find on photography and LEARN HOW TO TAKE PICTURES. They didn't understand this since they had it so ingrained in them that the only thing that separated a veteran paranormal investigator from a weekend graveyard illuminator was knowing which digital camera worked better. That is so far from the truth it isn't even funny.

My advice to anyone getting into this field and wants to actually be successful at it is this:

1.  
   1. Ignore what you see on TV
   2. Buy old-school equipment (ie: 35MM SLRs, analog tape recorders, etc) and LEARN HOW IT WORKS
   3. Focus on understanding how the equipment does what it does

And most important - if you don't know, don't ever assume. Just ask someone. Very few people in this industry have secrets.