a good camera dont mean good photos! its the nut behind the view finder that gets the good photos! most compacts cameras are more than capable to snap 90% of the photos we want to take! the benifit of an slr (in general) is the ability to control the shutter speed (motion blur/freeze time) and the apature (depth of feild control ie the amount of the picture thats in focus) and the ability to change lens for different focal lengths (zoom)