i just came back from ritz camera to see how g10 was but he person convinced me to go for a dslr. i have been looking at d40 and the person told me panasonic g1 is good but its expensive. since im a beginner i was thinking about d40, d60, rebel xsi, or g1 because its pretty sick
OK, you opened the door to the DSLR world, so I can't resist coaxing you over the threshold. Here is why a DSLR is so much better, in a nutshell. For starters, the sensor will be much larger, so the dynamic range and noise handling with be far superior. For example:
(Click to enlarge and see detail)
The image at the top was taken with a Canon point-and-shoot (the SD800 IS), and the image at the bottom was taken with a Canon DSLR (the XSi with an EF100mm f/2 USM lens attached).
Why the huge difference? It's the size of the sensor:
(Again, click to enlarge)
The bottom row shows common sensor sizes found in point-and-shoot cameras: tiny! Something that small with a decent number of megapixels must have really small photosites to accommodate all of the megapixels. Really small photosites result in weak signals. Weak signals have trouble being clean and strong, so they show a lot of "noise" and don't capture a nice range of lights and darks.
Then there's the whole issue of lenses. With a DSLR, you can attach the perfect lens for whatever it is you're shooting. With a point-and-shoot, you're stuck with one lens, period. So a DSLR is therefore a lot more fun, since different lenses enable different creative possibilities, and it has the potential to produce top-notch quality, if you invest in the right lenses.