Just to be contrary here, I am asking a serious question. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but am really curious as to why...

Why a DSLR rather than a super-zoom camera? Am I missing something here?

I know that a DSLR has a considerable larger CCD chip, and thus with the same amount of megapixels is going to have a better quality image, i.e., less noisy. And I know that an SLR lens with restricted zoom range is going to have fewer optical/mechanical compromises and will in all likelihood produce a sharper image.

But... there is much more to photography than ultimate image quality. I am by no means a great photographer, but I know from experience that it isn't the camera that makes the picture, but the person pressing the shutter button.

I have a Panasonic DMC-FZ50 super-zoom camera. The newer super-zooms have more impressive specifications (double the zoom, 40% more pixels) but the FZ50 has features the others lack, such as a manual (not electric!) zoom control and a separate viewfinder. It is a very versatile camera, operating in any mode from point-and-shoot to full manual. There are 23 separate buttons, slides, wheels, and controls on the outside of the camera, and I use every single one of them.

I bought the camera knowing full well that I was compromising ultimate image quality in the name of versatility. To match the capabilities of my camera with a DSLR, you would need a wheelbarrow to carry around all the lenses (I have everything from 26mm to 1680mm (35mm equiv.) at my disposal) and even if someone with a DSLR happened to have the proper lens with him, in the time it took to dig the lens out of the wheelbarrow, remove the present lens, put the new one one, get set up, focused, composed and exposed, the picture opportunity might well be gone. I routinely take photos that would not be possible with a DSLR. So am I worse off by getting a picture with slightly degraded quality (not discernible in less than a 16x20 print!) than I would be with no picture at all?

Now, a lot of very smart people proselytize for DSLRs, people who know a lot more about photography than I do. So, there must be something to it.

What?

tanstaafl.