Kitt wrote:

Assuming you call the Nikon 8800 a top of
the line ZLR, it gets a little harder to justify the SLR with IS lens
to match the capabilities of the 8800. For example, the Canon 20D with
a 300mm IS zoom will price out at around $2000 to $3000 or more,
depending on lens/lenses.

Is flexibility worth that?

And quality, I'd say.
That depends on you and what you want to do.

The 8800:
- lighter, (much) cheaper!!, smaller
- no extra lenses to buy and factor into the price
- can do movies
- twistable monitor
- no dust on the sensor problems
- no mirror slap noise, probably really silent
- on-monitor view of all important parameters


The 20D:
- ISO 1600 (good) and 3200 (OK). Practically no noise at/below
ISO 400.
- 50mm (80mm equiv) Canon lenses available with f/1.8 ($70), f/1.4
($300) and f/1.0 ($2500). They are very nice portrait lenses,
too, giving a nice bukeh. (Cheaper 3rd party lenses exist.)
- 70-200 (112-320 equiv) f/2.8 IS L lenses exist($1700), too.
(though slower lenses, without IS, are much much cheaper)
= low-light advantage of 3-7 steps. Even if you can use flash,
you get less of the available light (and use more flash power),
risking to drown the background in black.
- fast lenses give you a _narrow_ depth of sharpness. You cannot
get that in any other way, not with flashes or tripods or more
light or any other tricks.
- The lenses can be re-used for many years on many cameras.
You can even switch to film, if you want ...
- Lenses stop down to f/22.
- moderately fast flash-sync of 1/250s allows you fill-in flashes
at day to lighten shadows.
- extensive tweakable white balance
- 5 frames/s, with a deep buffer
- switch on practically instantly (0.2s), just press the shutter
button to be ready to shoot in any and all modes of the camera
- probably higher quality (10x zoom lenses have to make 'some'
concessions. Note how high quality lenses seldom have more
than 3x zoom ...)
- direct view in the searcher, no light-sensor-monitor-eye
chain will slow things down.
- most important settings can be reached without going through
any menu, so you are faster 'on the draw'.
- 8 point AF circle + center AF point, including predictive
AF for moving targets.


But then making great photos is not a function of your camera:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm
so choose whichever camera fits best in your budget and

Especially when even that flexibility might be made obsolete in
today's rapidly changing marketplace.

The lenses of an SLR, if quality lenses they are, can be used for
decades. And the lenses for SLRs stay over much longer periods.

Who knows what might replace the DSLR in two or
three years as the next big thing?

The 35mm format has been going for almost a century (since
1914, see
http://www.leica-camera.com/unterneh...k/index_e.html
for more information), so I wouldn't worry myself sleepless about
the next 2 or 3 years, really.

Think I'll stick with my S1 IS for
a while longer. Just saw that Amazon has the 1.6 teleconverter
lens/hood/adapter combo for $140. Maybe I can add the closeup lens for
a few dollars more. That'll keep me happy for a few more months. ;o)

Note that such a "teleconverter" does degrade quality. The
question is: does it degrade enough for the 8800's sensor to see
it, and if so, so much that you do care?

-Wolfgang