Did I need to spend so much on a DSLR?

[Mike.P®]

Went down the beach as its a fairly reasonable day (well, most are actually) and decided to take my old Canon Ixus 430.
4 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom, and a something X digital zoom which I never use.
All "quality" settings set to maximum.

Bit of cropping and some Lightroom work.

Must say, I had forgotten just how good this little camera is.

Well after all that, OF COURSE I NEEDED TO BUY A DSLR ... but don't show my wife these

[pixelpixel]

Nice images......all take with a PowerShot / Digital IXUS 430.

Word of warning 'don't' check the Camera Finder section for this camera.....

Keep away from the interesting section.

[senu]

I have an A4 Picture printed on An HP Photprrinter in 2000 ( when my second daughter was born) from a 2Mp olympus
It looks sharp and colourful .. but those days are long gone..but it no way means the cameras were poor , just that you now have even better ( for relativly les cost)
TBH it cost then as much as a D40 ( DSLR) costs now..
My point: DSLRs are dead cheap..

Oh ..nice pictures.. where are the people??

[stevegreen]

It has certainly exposed those images very nicely and for a point and shoot it has done it's job.......however, I took a gander at the full size .jpg of the last one on Flickr and you can see why you would still want a decent DSLR and lens for large size and printing, loads of colour noise in the blues of the sky and not entirely sharp throughout. There was a distinct lack of CA though which I didn't expect with that much contrast between the white and the sky though.

[Mike.P®]

Originally Posted by senu

Oh ..nice pictures.. where are the people??

I walked with the dog the whole length of the beach and back again in about 50 mins and in that time I passed 2 people.

To you and me its beautiful weather, nice, sunny and warm .. to the Spanish its still quite chilly.
Christmas day myself, my wife and son were sitting outside on the sunbeds wearing summer clothes listening to White Christmas on the stereo .. our Spanish neighbours walked past wearing jumpers and coats .. they looked at us as though we were stark raving mad.

As you rightly say though, this camera cost me the same 5 years ago as my Pentax K10D.
The lenses on the other hand, now that's a different story alltogether ....

[stevegreen]

Originally Posted by sockpuppetuk

To you and me its beautiful weather, nice, sunny and warm .. to the Spanish its still quite chilly.
Christmas day myself, my wife and son were sitting outside on the sunbeds wearing summer clothes listening to White Christmas on the stereo .. our Spanish neighbours walked past wearing jumpers and coats .. they looked at us as though we were stark raving mad.

That always used to amaze me when I used to go to Portugal in March, we were in our shorts and t-shirts thinking how great the weather was and all the locals were in their winter clothes

[Vandraman]

I think small prints of sunny landscapes are where compacts do best. It's surely in their shaprness and detail and massively increased flexibility that DSLRs really pull well clear of compacts? Like, lower lighting, portraits, colour veracity, etc etc. And the control you have over depth of field etc.

I speak from relatively little expertise, but that's my impression having upgraded a little while ago.