I'm going to quote a petebiro on www.dpreview.com about this. Its a fairly long thread, but worthwhile reading. For anyone interested go to the above URL, go to forums and 'search' for digital DOF. "Depth of field has to do with the focal length of the lense and the lens opening (2.8 being wide open on many lenses will have LESS dof than the same lens at f11). All that you are doing with a digital camera is changing the cropping of the image. You are only using a small portion of what the lens is capable of covering. One advantage is that many lenses have poorer quality around the edges. Using a digital crops that part of the image out so it is unimportant. Most photos, however, are actually better with "soft" edges (portraits in particular). Enlarging and copy lenses are FLAT FIELD lenses and are usually sharp out to the far corners. Another advantage of the digital is the "percieved" increased focal length, which actually does not change. ie a 200mm is like (it does not become) a 300mm... based entirely on the crop to provide a narrower angle of view. There is a lot of confusion on this subject. Remember YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE FOCAL LENGTH OF A FIXED LENS... ONLY A ZOOM... and it changes within the lens, has nothing to do with film vs. digital." Also, they discuss the Nikon D1 in some depth. I have a Canon G1--a 'prosumer' type camera while the D1 is a digital SLR. Diane