Going purely by my own experiences the two main elements to a good shot are lighting and composition, get one  of these right and you'll have a good shot, get them both right and you'll have a great shot no matter what camera you use. Whenever I get a shot that I look at and think "now that's good", more often than not I've just been in the right place at the right time e.g in a mist covered field at the crack of dawn I could point the camera pretty much anywhere and get a good shot.

If I don't get any unexpected bills in the next couple of weeks then I'll finally be getting my hands a DSLR, but will I take any better pictures? I doubt it, in fact until I get to grips with it I reckon I'll be deleting far more than I save, lol. There's nothing wrong with the camera I've got (Minolta Z1) but since I got the 'photo bug' I've wanted to get a better camera for so long now it's become an absolute need. You know what I mean - if I can do this with my camera now, just think what I could do if I had a better camera, lol.

There's a similar thing in astronomy - no matter how big/good a scope you have it's never big/good enough. I guess the same can be said for photography no matter how good your camera/lens etc is, you'll always want a better one.

I guess what I'm trying to say is having an 'eye' for a great shot is worth more than all the photo equipment you could possibly buy. Some people appear to be natural born photographers (and there are certainly plenty here on RR) but I think it's a skill anyone can pick up - just keep practicing!!

• Andy

www.natural-photo.co.uk

"Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.  ~Ansel Adams"