I bought a Nikon Cool pix 8700 in April of 2004 and I shot over 5,000 images with it. I then bought the D 70 in February 2005 and it is now September, I reached the 5,000 mark about a month ago. With the 8700 I always composed using the LCD, simply because the viewfinder on that camera reminds me of cartoonland or something, I like the fact that the LCD swivels and turns and I can get a viewpoint that normally I would be too short get so it has its advantages. With the D 70 I have to use the viewfinder, the scene is not cartoonish at all it is like using a regular SLR, what you see is what you get. I honestly have to say that I prefer the viewfinder, the LCD is just for seeing a preview of what you shot. Now for the major difference between them, when shooting with the 8700 I have a "take" of about 50% on the average, half of the shots I shoot with this camera are OOF or the exposure isn't quite right, because using the LCD you really have no clue that the image is not sharp until you get home and down load it. With the D 70 using the viewfinder, I have on average a 90% "take" I can tell if the image isn't focused properly and it always comes out the way I saw it through the viewfinder. Another thing that I find is that my batteries last much longer with the D 70 then the batteries ever lasted using the 8700! Why? Because I was always using that LCD on the 8700, and that my dear must litterally drain those batteries, I could get an hour to hour and a half on an 8700 battery, depending on whether or not I used the flash. My D70 battery lasts forever, I am betting that on average I might have ten hours on each battery, it takes forever to use one up. I shot a whole wedding, over 400 images with flash unit on one battery! And I had already used it for a ton of images prior to doing the wedding My advice Andreas, don't go out and buy a D SLR just because you can buy a LCD to use with it, LCD's are nice and have their place, but I can guarantee that once you shoot with a D SLR you won't miss that LCD for very long. Brenda :)