skatr2
I'm in agreement with you that lense quality is a key. But I lost you where you compare a 5mpxl 4x zoom lense vs. 7mpxl 3x zoom lense. The zoom range has no direct connection to image quality, it is simply magnification range.
Point n shoot cameras have come a long way and your's seems like a good one. They'll do a lot, as I tried to show with my little example. With some effort in good studio lighting, a p-n-s with a good lense will make some pics of guns that a SLR couldn't improve on. But SLR's do have larger optics, giving them the advantage of lense imperfection scale reduction. SLRs also typically have features not found on most p-n-s cameras. The downside of SLRs of course is cost and convenience. My Konica p-n-s has a 10x optical zoom and macro/super macro settings. Talk about flexibility at a bargain in one package!
