A few years back I bought a Nikon 4500 and instantly fell in love with digital photography. Nevertheless, I began to get frustrated with some of the camera's limitations - these included:

- Poor documentation and a fairly complicated menu system
- No obvious way to manually focus the lens
- Slow response

So, when I had enough spare cash, I bought a Canon 300D dSLR with a couple of extra lenses. Oh wow! What a camera! The advantages were:

- Superb documentation which actually leads me to believe that I might, one day, get beyond the beginner stage in photography
- Complete control over manual focussing
- Control over shutter speed

Of course, I'd only just got into using the 300D when the 350D came out - which looks even better. The trouble with digital cameras is that they are changing so fast that they are out of date almost before they're out of the box! Still, as I've recently lost my job (no spare cash!),the 300D will be perfectly adequate for the next few years.

I use Paint Shop Pro for editing but, although it's good for basic tweaking, getting at some of the more advanced functionality is not easy. It's a bit like the basic stuff is in a small boat over a deep ocean trench whilst the advanced stuff is at the bottom of the trench - and no-one has thought to supply the user with a bathyscape ...

Oh well, I'm sure that the problems will be sorted out eventually - but digital is definitely the way to go.