Posted on 16 Apr 2014
hi Alicia
I've been a keen amateur snapper for almost 30 yrs , now, re- your camera question I guess it all depends on what you want to do with your images, lots of people get carried away with the number of pixels they're camera use's, but unless your going to be enlarging your prints to poster size or above the number of pixels isn't really that important, i.e a 6 x 4 print taken on a 6 megapixel camera will be just as clear as one taken on a 16 mp camera.
there again do you want a point and shoot type , a bridges camera or a bone fide dslr camera, the main advantage a dslr has over a bridge camera is that you can alter your lens option 's i.e. you can change the lens from say a 50 - 85mm wide angle lens to a 70- 150 mm telephoto lens.
next you'll have to consider things like camera weight, the cameras manual v automatic functions, how many pre-set modes the camera has.
with £400 to play with you can have a pop at a variety of cameras that will serve you well, one I can personally recommend is a dslr , a Nikon D3200, a good all round unit, offering variable lens options etc priced at around the figure you mention, if you don't want to mess about changing lens ,then the Fuji finepix bridge camera range could be worth a look.
but bear in mind any camera is only as good as the person behind it, but modern cameras with even the most basic of features can give professional looking images.
hope this all helps a little ;)
