I own both, a nikon(film) and a sony(digital)and shoot manual with both. Being a (trained) Photographer for 25 years, I welcome digital! (no more chemicals! I can still smell Dektol & Rapid Fix!) The results from the the 5 megapixel in my opinion are comparable to 4x5 film - no grain and sharp! :-) I recently shot a group (50+ people) with the sony and the resulting 11 x 14 I printed from my canon s9000 is far superior than the group shot done previously with a 2 1/4 and conventional photo printing. In the end I picked up a new client by using the digital.