Doug, These images are reduced down from 15 Mb Raw files so I would not expect you to see a massive improvement in quality at this size. At the time of posting them Adobe had not upgraded their camera raw converter to open the D200 raw files so these had to be converted via Nikon Capture before opening in CS2 not an ideal way but the only work around at the time. Very minor levels adjustment has been added to the images to get to this result. The camera fits very comfortably in the hand, I have added the vertical grip ( MB 200 ? ), with my most used lens, a 17 - 35 2.8 the combination is extremely well balanced for hand held shots even with the weather we have been experiencing. I think if you have experience with other Nikon DSLR cameras you will find no trouble adapting to the D200, I have been using the D100 ( my wife now has this camera ) and the D200 is just a logical upgrade specification wise, the controls are in similar positions, the menu's are similar and the preview screen is now a really usable feature for image assesment. That dull lifeless weather has been fairly typical of what we have experienced in this part of the UK of late but the trip out in the snow was out of desparation, I had owned the camera for several weeks, worked through the manual, decided on the settings I intended to start with, I needed to get out and take some images, the snow was an unexpected bonus, it was not or did not look like snowing when I left home !