If you need it for professional photography, buy SLR. Otherwise its a waste of money. Small point and shoot digital cameras have the same picture quality but less contorl on other aspects( like light , tone, zoom etc). Those controls basically you dont need for simple day to day photography. If you need SLR I suggest Canon rebel, they come for minimum of 8Pix and starts from ~$900. Other thing....the lenses and filters (to make much use of SLR) are damn expensive......and is bulkier to move around, unless you live on it.