Picture perfect

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(The ASCII art above describes my current workload)

Since it looks like our current camera is going to be in the shop until (at least) the end of January, I've been poking nosing around the local camera outlets looking at an upgrade. It's not that I don't like our current camera - quite the opposite. To this day I still think that it was the best available to us at the time in that price range, and I am very happy with its performance. I am an SLR kind of guy, though, and I miss toting around an oversized bag full of lenses - which brings me back to the "nosing around" that I mentioned earlier.

After looking at several cameras at different levels, I've narrowed it down to three:

Canon Digital Rebel XTi
Sony¹ Alpha 100
Nikon D80

The last time I was shopping for a camera, it came down to a choice between the Nikon and the Olympus (and the latter won out by a hair based mostly on cost). This time around, I am primarily torn between the Canon and the Sony.

The main temptations on the Sony side are its image stabilizer, and dynamic range optimizer. Other than the small price variance, there doesn't seem to be a lot to choose from between the Canon and the Nikon.

I am leaning toward the Canon - in part because I've had good experiences with their film cameras in past, but I am open to suggestions. The floor is all yours. Sell me on a digital SLR.

^{1 - While I detest Sony, and think that they are creatively bankrupt, they have some very nice cameras. Then again, when you buy a Sony camera, you are basically buying a Minolta...}