Oh, Barb!
Don't fall for hype. In normal light and conditions, there's very
little difference between the picture you get from most DSLRs and
the picture you get from an H5.
Cons:
a) Getting a DSLR with thousands of dollars in expensive, big
lenses, will not ensure that you take bigger pictures.
b) It will ensure that you will suffer from lens lust for the rest
of your life, always hoping the next, bigger, more expensive piece
of glass will get you the next great shot. Usually, it only gets
you more glass, and poorer.
Many people who buy big glass end up getting rid of it. Because it
is huge and heavy and unless you have a significant need and
commitment to the big glass, it is more of a pain than a benefit.
Trust me, I've been there.
c) The DSLR is not the panacea you think it is. It is, in fact,
just a camera. And the eye behind the viewfinder is infinitely more
imporant and valuable than any equipment you can buy.
d) High-ISO is not what it's cracked up to be. Though one brand may
have a stop or a stop-and-a-half better than the other, none of
them can perform miracles: only light makes good photos.
Amplification does not.
Pros:
a) If you need to get a shot in a split-second... if you are
shooting rapidly moving wildlife in bright daylight, the DSLR may
be a necessity. I use mine for just that purpose. For instance, I
shot a tennis match today. And even though I thought that my D200
was doing a much better job of stopping the action, the results do
not confirm that. I was amazed to see how many of my H5 shots
stopped the ball just before it hit the racket, or just over the
net. I thought it had missed them. It didn't. (I'll post some
tommorrow).
b) You do have many more options for specialty lenses, like a 500
mm zoom (the Sigma Bigma - 50-500, 75-750 on a DX crop sensor).
On the other hand, the H5 gives you 36-734 mm with the $100
teleconverter!
c) The huge advantage of the DSLR, to me, is its many more options.
Not just glass, but the hundreds of settings available in my Nikon
D200's menus, autofocus, flash and metering.
On the other hand, it can take a long time to get the settings
right (believe it or not, I'm still experimenting with mine).
And, those settings can be a big pain when you need to get the shot
fast.
Let me correct one major misapprension of yours. The Carl Zeiss
lens on your H5 is every bit as good as -most- DSLR glass, just
smaller. The zoom range you have will be difficult and very
expensive to match. Many thousands of dollars, esp. if you add-in
Macro.
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. And be
terribly disappointed that it didn't give you what you need.
Don't get me wrong, if you need 5 frames per second (which I
sometimes do) and RAW files (which I always do) and a sophisticated
Flash system (which I do), then a DSLR is an excellent choice.
But if you're just trying to capture a relatively sedentary deer in
the fields or the woods, the H5 will do as well as a DSLR in almost
all situations.
I believe that the best upgrade to any camera system is the
education of the photographer!
--
=~ AAK -
http://www.aakatz.com
=~ Author of the H-Series White Paper
=~
http://www.aakatz.com/h1whitepaper
