Karen wrote:

anything under $1K is considered a home-use camera by the industry

I agree, but that's still a lot of money.  My point is that dollar for
dollar, the initial price of digital cameras are still inflated compared to
comparable film cameras, when you take into account the versatility and
quality of lenses, etc.

No doubt that the film-related costs provide a fast catch-up - which is why
I see film cameras disappearing from day to day use.  And, the processing
labs get away from expensive and environmentally unfriendly chemicals (that
will be a major driver of the switchover).

Several of the main brand camera folks are slowly moving towards affordable
camera bodies with the full range of lenses, camera controls, etc. that we
are used to having with the better SLRs.

My only purpose is to point out the trade-offs at this time.  If you have a
really good SLR and assortment of lenses and then spend $1000 on a digital
camera, you may be disappointed.  For one thing, even the best of these
digital cameras (and I've used several of the major brands) tend to distort
images (look at vertical lines) badly.  That would be unacceptable on even
a moderately priced SLR.

On the other hand, the digital cameras keep changing, almost every 6
months.  So, they are catching up.  And, for snapshots, they are already
there.  But if you are an advanced photographer, you may wish to wait it
out a bit longer.

Cheers

Jerry