...no need to bring up the "snop wars," we're all sort of friends here, (every one of us). Manual is a must for creative work. [I just realized, I don't really know how the high-mid-tier digies focus... rangefinder? crappy little LCD screen?] The few times folks have asked me to snap them with their digitals, "Here, just point and press this button," I was never quite sure when the damn thing actually fired. Seemed to be a lot of buzzing and beeping going on, and of course the subjects ended up different from what they were doing when I pressed the button. >enjoyed using it and have taken lots of really nice pics Seems to be the whole point of it, hey? I wish I could focus better, (and expose better, while not shaking...). It be really nice if I could catch the moment that happened right BEFORE I pressed the shutter... Any technology to help in this would also seem to limit the creativity. The "consumer" cameras seem to do a nice job on the type of pictures most consumers want to make. [There is always that problem of not enough features vs. too hard to control the features that are present...] No real point here, other than I agree completely with headcase; manual is more important and any other feature.