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I have an older Powershot (SD500), too, and it’s my primary camera because it’s so darn convenient.
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Larry is on to something there about convenience. To be honest, if I could have only one camera, between the little compact one or the SLR, I’d probably keep the small one. I have taken that little guy everywhere. Now if you want to really get into photography, that’s kind of where the SLR comes into play. With that said, I have friends that have very nice SLRs, and they don’t generally get great pictures. You do have to apply skill to make use of an SLR. Back to my original point… unless you really want to pursue photography as an art, for your price range, I would prefer to have a compact unit. The one Jeff is talking about sounds promising.
And you’d still have enough left over for a mic