Photography: What camera to buy

[Carn]

Siya I am in a similar predicament, I need/want a replacement for my aging Sony DSC-P32 and considered a SLR but think I will stick with a P&S for the time being. I found an interesting thread over on DW regarding the very same question the other day, you can view it here.

One of the most pertinent posts from the thread, and the one that has helped me decide to stick with a P&S for the time being is this one :

"Everyone always shouts 'buy a DSLR' but that ISNT ALWAYS THE BEST SOLUTION!

If you are not going to invest the time in learning how to make the most of the manual control offered by a DSLR, then its a waste of time and money. DSLR's are bigger, heavier, dont fit in a pocket, take more skill to get good results from and need more kit and £ to get the same range of options offered by a quality compact.

I have both - DSLRs AND several compacts, and wouldnt be without either. My decent compacts offer image quality that is comparable to my Canon 5D unless you want to blow up pictures to A3 or bigger, or shoot in extremely low light. They offer almost the same degree of manual control (Ricoh GR-D) and I even get great wide angle from them - my Ricoh has a 28mm equivalent lens. The compacts drop in my pocket and travel everywhere with me. To get the same flexibility from my DSLR I need to pack a bag with quite some kit...

I'm packing right now for 4 days in the Swiss Alps tomorrow. I am VERY much torn between what to carry - a big bag that covers 17-200mm with batteries & cards, hoods etc, or my small compacts that will fit in a shirt pocket.

With practice and some skill you can get the results from a quality compact that most people cant achieve from a 'must have' DSLR - trust me"

Also Siya if you are wanting anything from the Canon range let me know, I have a friend who works there and I can get stuff from him at cost

I am more than likely going to get myself the Canon S5 IS

It is an 8.0mp with 12X zoom, macro mode (for taking cool close ups of bugs and flowers and stuffs) and also has a swivel mounted screen so you can take pics from all kinds of crazy angles without having to roll around in the dirt

There is an indepth full review on the S5 IS here .

The RRP on them is R4499 but they often on special for around R3999. I can pick one up for R3160excl from Canon. There is also the SX10 IS which is the S5 IS's 10mp replacement that will be here shortly as well (end of the month they say) but will be retailing at around R4999 so cost would probably be around R4400 or thereabouts

At the end of the day I think you need to decide how far you wanting to go and how much $$$$ you wanting to spend. A DSLR is really only as good as the lens attached to it, I'm not sure on the Nikon's but the Canon L series lenses are the big daddy's as far as IQ is concerned....be prepared to bend over without lube when buying one though