Wish list in order;

EXIF in database
Tags (categories can be emulated by tags, and in the end tags are more powerful)
Slideshow
Create more users
Announcements in admin area

Since it's aimed at photo's it seems obvious to have the EXIF data available to show, search and organise.

I think the admin area (maybe the first screen?) you could have a area like on WP that keeps you updated on the Zenphoto news? This would be really handy during the dev to get news on plans and releases?

Just FYI Darren—I [i]hate[/i] that feature of WP with a passion. Sometimes takes over a minute for my WP control panel to load (until I manually removed them). I'll provide a link to news, but no integrated RSS feed.

How about providing an RSS feed for news/updates and allow you to add the feed to admin if you want? If not it can show a hyperlink for an RSS feed for you to add to whatever you use for RSS?

For the beta maybe a mailing list for annoucements?