Ditto.........Ditto........Ditto...............:-((

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you although you do have some valid
points. I can't speak for anyone else, but I do spend more than what I
can afford on photography and I'm only a beginner. I have a Canon S1 IS
($250) and a Digital Rebel with the 18-55mm standard lens ($400) and in
love with both of them. The S1 was my first digicam and once I learned
the basics of photography, how to control aperture, exposure, etc. I
then felt comfortable to move up to the SLR and just use the S1 as my
"famcam" to take family shots and stuff. Once I get comfortable with
*this* SLR and become an expert, I may get the 20D or the 5D but really
they are too much camera for the simple stuff that I do; the Rebel is
enough for me. I imagine by that time rolls around, I could find a 20D
or 5D for less than $1000 because I plan on utilizing the Rebel for a
long long time.

I bought this stuff because true, I do want clarity but viewing on my
monitor, there is a definate difference between my 3.2Mp S1 and my 6Mp
Rebel. The photos are crisp on the Rebel. The S1 still looks good, but
there is a noticeable difference; especially in RAW.

I only use my images to make my photography site and although I know no
one really cares, I buy all this stuff because I *love* to do it. I
don't care about how much money I spend as long as I get that
self-gratification knowing that *I* took *that* picture; it has nothing
to do with being "suckered". But on the other hand, I only buy what I
can catch at a deal. I would never pay full price for those cameras. I
would wait until its been out for a while and price goes down.

My interests are in macrophotography, astrophotography and wildlife.
Although I know the magic comes from the lens, the Rebel delivers the
crisp look that I want. When I take a picture of the moon, I want it to
look like I took the photo from the Space Station. I ordered me a
75-300mm lens just so I can get more detail and I plan on getting me a
telescope so I can shoot Jupiter, Mars and the other tangible planets. I
am sure once I get bored with that, I will get an even stronger lens so
I can get nebulas, black holes and other heavenly bodies most people
only would see in books.

Like you, I don't print my photos either so the megapixels really don't
matter; I think a lot of people misunderstand this. If like me, people
are only putting stuff on the web or sending through emails, yes all
they need is a 1 megapixel camera. Peoples' mistake is they shop for
megapixels, not the size of the image sensor, which determines the
quality of the image you're going to get. And all one would need is a
3.2mp camera to do an 8x10 which is the largest a home photo printer can
do. In turn they are buying more camera than they need, but that is not
the fault of the manufacturers, that's the fault of the consumer not
being educated to make a smart shopping decision. And retailers don't
advertise the sensor, they advertise the megapixels. That's why I chose
the Rebel; it was in my price range and had a better image sensor.
People should buy cameras based on the size of its sensor, not
megapixels if they care about the look of their photos.

But how can you make prints of the best shots if it's shot with a 2MP
compact? And I have to disagree on the "dreamy bokeh" from a compact, have
some examples? Most have limitless DOF or at best "choppy" bokeh from their
super wide zoom optics if they are focused on something VERY close to the
camera.  I'm not saying you can't take great shots with them, but there IS
a limit to what they can produce and do.

Yes

Have not found this a problem.

Not where I look.

And???

Actually I print quite a few, even frame some.

Cheaper than the car enthusiasts by a long way.

You are doing something very wrong if you are happier with a 2MP P&S over
any D-SLR.

<snip>

   For certain kinds of shooting, I see that being a realistic thing.  But
not all shooting - available-light action shooting and long-range nature
photography being two where superior equipment will yield dramatically
better results.
   But you're right in general - the sensitivity of the sensors used in P&S
cameras gets better by the month, and the gap seems to narrow in situations
where the camera gear isn't very challenged - and monitor-only viewing only
goes to filter that difference further.
   Take heart in knowing that compared to golfers who habitually spend $2k
on clubs every year, amateur photographers actually get *some* improvement
over the last rig.  There are a lot of sucker hobbyists out there who spend
lots of hard-earned money and get nothing at all out of it - although they'd
cry if you popped their bubble of toy-bliss.

   Dave

You could have stopped after this paragraph.  If you're spending
more than you can afford, you're getting suckered.

But once you get past that hurdle, people have different reasons
for buying gear.  I'm not a pro and have no ambition to become one.  I
understood the harsh realities in the "Do you make a living"
thread long ago.

So where's the reward?  Like many hobbies, some of it comes from pride
of ownership.  I don't expect much functionality out of an 18th century
1/13th shilling coin, nor much investment return, yet I still own one.
The same is true of a Pentax 110 SLR system, or even my Ansco Junior
Press Photographer badge.

Another possible reward is a sense of accomplishment.  There are
certainly cheaper ways to decorate one's walls, or to acquire
art to give at Christmas.  But there's still a kick in knowing a
picture is your own, or in exchanging homemade gifts.

Another source of a sense of accomplishment is getting something to
work.  In general I don't get much of a boost out of looking at a shot
pixel-by-pixel on a screen, nor by "winning" a Photoshop(tm) battle.
Getting back my first 4x5" slides, OTOH, ... well that's me.  It'll
be different for every one of us.

Still others get their reward from discovering or disseminating
knowledge.  Considering my wife is a college professor, I can
understand that as well.  

In my case, those "very best" shots are a big part of the payoff.  
Except for the odd test shot, any time I grab a camera it's in the
hope I'll create something worth printing at size.

All valid reasons, if photography is your hobby and you understand
why you're spending the money.  If a camera is your jewelry, who am
I to challenge that?  I mentioned 4x5" slides above.  The vast
majority of the time, my 4x5" camera will be no more than an object
d' art.  If you don't see the beauty in a rosewood-and-brass field
camera, that's okay.  It's not your house.

There's a 'trap' in digital photography.  Since the incremental outlay
per shutter click is virtually zero, one frequently invests less time
in visualization, composition and setup.  If you want to get more
out of your dSLR capital costs, consider spending the same amount of
time and effort to take fewer, better thought out pictures.

Yup and that may or may not have much to do with photography

If you want gadgets and a place to dump money take up flying and
purchase a high performance airplane.  I don't think you can find more
toys in one spot.

Those who are photographers realize we are looking at a resolution of
less than 100 ppi on a monitor and at least 300 dpi  on a print and
take that into consideration.

Maybe if you want the image to glow, but I find images that are really
good are quite comparable between the monitor and the print.

There is the crux of the matter.  It's like the difference between the
point and shoot crowd and serious photographers.  In simple terms if
you are only going to view on a monitor AND you are not going to be
cropping small chunks out of images and then enlarging them there is
absolutely no need for an expensive, high res camera.  I do a lot of
photography and rarely have I seen a need for more resolution than my
5 and 6 megapixel cameras provide.

Depending on my budget I'm one of those early adopters.  I build my
own computers, and am at least near the leading edge. I gave up on the
bleeding edge long ago and with 4 computers  (over 4 Terabytes on the
network) to keep running I'm slipping from leading edge to "adequate
for the job"

Toys? I've always liked toys and technology. No one had to teach me
that. I come by it naturally.   As far as vanity, I purchase stuff to
use, not to show off, but yes it does make me feel better when I have
equipment I know is up to the task.

All of my equipment gets stuffed into a back pack with the exception
of the one or two cameras.  Many of the places where I shoot (air
shows and races) there are many cameras that would make me go hide if
I had purchased my cameras for an ego boost. <:-))

I've never had an obsolete camera! I have some very old ones for which
parts are no longer available, but they still work.  I still use my
first digital camera (Oly E20N) on a regular basis and probably close
to as much as I use the D70.  These cameras *are* up-to-the-task with
the only faults being the E20N is slooowwww and the D70 has no mirror
lock-up.  I even did out my old "Highland H2 Pentax" with the screw
mount lenses on rare occasion. That camera is about 45 years old.

I would add for the gentleman who wants to do some astrophotography;
That is not a simple field.  In the 10" telescope I use, Mars and
Jupiter are a very small portion of the overall image. To put it
bluntly, they are tiny.  So, you can use eyepiece projection, careful
guiding, patience, cold feet, (well, cold all over), lack of sleep,
the neighbors leaving their outside lights on just when you want to do
some photography, and maybe someone a few houses over who installs a
Mercury Vapor light bright enough to cast shadows in your yard...

Ahhh...where was I?  Spent to much time out in the cold weather the
other night...

Getting good astro images takes skill and no small amount of luck.
You are talking very long time exposures for deep sky objects, but the
advent of applications like "Stacker" allow you to take many shorter
duration images and stack them with the result being a much sharper
image with less noise than one long exposure.

You most likely will not want a higher power telescope for deep sky
objects, but you will want a larger one.  Many deep sky objects are
large. Very large such as the Andromeda Galaxy which is about 5 to 7
times the angular width of the full moon, but it's very faint.  This
time of year it should be overhead some where around midnight and it
is naked eye visible from a good location.  It's just so faint most
who do see it mistake it for thin, high clouds.

As to the black holes; as others have already said, they really aren't
visible and even the evidence of such is capable of being seen by only
the most powerful scopes used by professional astronomers.  I'm
eagerly awaiting the images from the very large optical telescope
array when all of the telescopes come on line.  Even with just one the
images are astounding and they will be combining the images from (As I
recall) five of these huge telescopes.

If you are seriously considering astrophotography, I'd suggest seeking
out a local astronomy club and working with them.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Go on ... "lens crack".

Nice way of ingratiating yourself, that "We love" ... typical
way of making you look one of the crowd.

Now you are talking about addicts, not about us.

Definitively addicts, not photographers.

also called way oversharpened.

at 800x600?  *suuure*
I have one image that on the monitor, even at 1:1, is OK.  Printed,
it's WOW.  On 800x600 it'd not be anything special.

Oh, yes, because the only way to get that bokeh at 800x600 is
using a huge sensor and f1.x lenses.

The saturation slider is known to me as well.

You might have been, true enough.

Which only shows that there are some people with the skill to
photograph the decicive moment, the right motives, from the right
angle, etc.  And some of them know and use a small camera for
when they don't want to carry or risk a big camera.

Because we are ignoring all the ones that don't and only look
at the top 0.001%?

Nope.  The same images would look good printed.

Nope, downscaling will hurt bokeh, but will (if done right)
hide a LOT of noise and increase sharpness. Where you may have
white-l.gray-gray-d.gray-black in 3000 pixels, at 800 you will
have a clean white-black border.  So they may well look unsharp
and undefined at the owner's monitor.

You cannot print 2MP with 300dpi in more than 5x4".
And wouldn't that be a pity, the perfect shot and you cannot get
a large image ...

Because we want printable images if we manage one of the real
good ones?

Then you should stop forking out money and break your addiction.
Try learning to use your tools effectively instead.

-Wolfgang

Even if you are printing your photos, you are still being suckered. The
truth is, with all of today's technical advances, no one takes better
photos now than they did with the equipment available 100 years ago.
The only thing is that cameras have gotten a little lighter and they do
some common tasks automatically for you, but that is it.

I had a Kodak Brownie box camera when I was 8 years old. After nearly
fifty years of taking pictures with more and more expensive equipment,
my pictures still look as terrible as those I took with the Brownie
(sorry, Ken Rockwell, but I haven't learned anything since I was 8
years old, either :-) ).

Okay, now at least I know they look terrible, so maybe I have learned
that. But it has nothing to do with equipment.

One thing that modern equipment does let me do: I can now take hundreds
or even thousands of terrible photos while on a single vacation instead
of just the few dozen allowed by my film budget. Then I can post them
on the Internet where people can look at them and make polite "nice
picture" remarks and I can look at their terrible pictures and say the
same thing.