Go with a point and shoot or with an SLR?

I agree with you. Good photography is more about composition. Just like painting. Of course the quality also matters, but if you don't have a good story or if your picture was not composed properly then it's just not good. I've also been using a point and shoot camera for many years now for my blog. And I've been receiving a lot of compliments about the composition and quality of it. I have thought of buying a DSLR but I just couldn't afford it. Plus, in order to have a really good quality you need to buy the lens which costs even higher than the DSLR itself. So buying a DSLR is kind of like a luxury to me already. So I said to myself that I'm only going to buy DSLR if I can make money out of it and have a return on my investment. Otherwise, if I'm just gonna use the pictures for my blog and personal stuff then I'll just stick with my point and shoot. I do need a new one though coz I think mine is kind of like losing its life, hehehe! I was able to read an article in the internet one time about a good camera that's a merger between a point and shoot and DSLR but much more affordable. It's called the Canon G11. And what I like about it is that it has a fast shutter, which is also what I'm looking for a camera. I think that's what I'm gonna buy soon, if I have the money :D

it depends what you want to do with your pictures. with a compact, you can still get very good pictures, especially with a good MP count. but an SLR allows more creative input in exactly how you want the picture to look. you can alter the shutter speed to capture greater detail in fast moving objects, or slower to show movement, or capture greater detail at low light conditions. you can adjust the aperture for depth of field, so either a whole image will be in sharp detail, or for example, with a portrait, only the subject will be in sharp focus, so that any distracting details in the background are minimised. there's also a lot of good creative effects you can create by using different shutter/aperture/ISO settings on the camera. also, modern SLRS have an automatic setting, with which you can get fantastic pictures immdediately, with no knowledge of the finer points of it. I've not taken a bad picture in automatic mode with mine. and when I want to be more creative, the options are there. on the negative side, they are larger, heavier and more bulky. so I do still keep my compact in my handbag, and take my SLR when we're going somewhere I know I'll be taking pictures. and it does take a while to get to grips with the manual settings on an SLR, and understand how to make the most of your pictures by using them. but now we're in an age of digital photography, we can instantly review the pictures, and see how our chosen settings have affected the image. so it's quicker to learn, now we can instantly see how the settings work, and change them where necessary. back when we used film, you'd have to develop them, and without notes of the settings that were used, you couldn't easily what caused success or failure in the image. a lot of camera manufacturers are now making cameras which fill the gap between compact and SLR. cameras which allow more of the creativity, but don't cost as much. I do love my SLR though. but there are pros and cons to both, it depends how much you think you can get to grips with the settings. if you feel that your camera restricts your creativity with pictures, which I was finding. wanting to choose what part of an image were in focus, how much depth of field etc) an SLR may well be the way to go.

I own both and I love my cameras for different reasons. Our SLR produces the most artistic pictures. As mentioned above, there are a lots of settings that can be done with an SLR. It's really an art. I also bring the SLR when I am attending a special event such as a wedding, a political event that is news worthy. Recently, my husband and I were able to cover human rights violations at a violent police dispersal of a rally. The SLR gave crisp images of what was happening. A lot of the images were used in different local and online newspapers. I love my point and shoot because its so compact I can bring it with me every day. My point and shot records more of my everyday life than the SLR. I use the point and shoot more for documentation of my daily life, of things I like, of things I want to remember. Heck I even use it when I don't want to write notes during classes. I just take a photo of my professor's presentations. ;) In the end, you have to consider your lifestyle on which camera to get. PS What about lomo cameras? They are pretty fun to use

I think it depends on what pictures you want to take and what size photos you are taking. If you are just taking regular snapshots of people and printing them at a 4x6 size then I think I prefer a high-quality point and shoot. They are more compact so easier to carry with you. However if you are frequently printing pictures at larger sizes, or if there are specific events you want to photograph and you know you will be able to carry a larger SLR camera with you then it really is a great camera. The other benefit to this is that you can often change the lens size on these cameras for more close-up shots and such.

Photography really depends on the photographer, it is how you personally perceive things and how you view its meaning. There's no problem in using a point and shoot camera. Though high end ones produces more quality pictures. But there are point and shoot cameras that has high megapixels nowadays, not much difference in quality compared to SLR. :)