"Bill R" wrote in message news:47f56437$0$19813

I have been using SLRs for over 45 years and I have been all around the
world taking pictures and, for me, they are the ONLY choice if you are
serious about photography.

It won't be *serious* - except for my pleasure. Having been inspired by this
group I aim for something better than I can get at the moment.

... I totally disagree with "Wolf K" that a "point'n'shoot camera set at
the highest resolution these days does nearly as good a job as a DSLR".
You just don't have the control with a point'n'shoot camera and I have yet
to find one that has a really decent lens.

I find that the lack of control with my P&S is a handicap.

Also, it is not true that the main advantage of a DSLR is that it can
shoot in RAW format. Other (non DSLRs) have that feature too and with the
high resolution that news cameras are capable of RAW is not needed unless
you are doing professional photography.

Which I'm not.

I do agree with Wolf about batteries. Get something that uses AA
batteries and the best rechargeable AAs that I found are the new Hybrid
ones that several vendors now make.

Yes, that's a very good point which I hadn't thought about.

I also disagree about getting the largest memory cards available for your
camera. For the money, 1 or 2 GB cards are a MUCH better deal than the
higher capacity cards, and, for me, I can keep things better organized
with "smaller" memory cards.

I doubt that I'll need anything more than that, heck, the biggest card I
have right now is 256Mb. And yes, organisation is better with 'smaller'
cards.

I don't have any specific brand recommendations on DSLRs. All of the
newer ones are very good but I would read the online reviews of the ones
you are considering to make sure it has all the features you want. As
others have recommended in this thread, I HIGHLY recommend a local dealer
and not the "Wal*Mart" type of store where the people don't really know
much about what they are selling.

That's certainly a very pertinent point, we do tend to think that we know it
all but we don't!

Thank you, everyone. It's all food for thought.

Mary