If there is any chance, any chance at all, that a) your interest in photography will increase,  b) you will keep electronic copies of your images, or c) you will revisit older stored images, absolutely, without question, shoot at the highest quality settings.

There are 2quality settings to adjust. One is usually called Size; this sets how many megapixels for each picture. A smaller Size requires less space, but fine details are lost. The second setting is usually called Quality; this sets how much compression is applied. More compression means less space required on the memory card, but the picture can take on a blocky look.

About a decade ago, I purchased my first point and shoot (a 2 megapixel Canon). Memory cards were pretty expensive, so I set Size to about 1 megapixel and Quality to medium. Lots and lots of images followed. Many weren't that great, but what the heck.

A few years after that I learned how to use Photoshop and found all sorts of great ways to enhance photos. But all those early photos were so small and so compressed there wasn't much I could do with them. Even now when I look at them, there are so many things in I wish I could make out. If only I had set the Size to full and the Quality to maximum...

Memory cards are cheap. Shoot at full size and highest quality. Please.