I have found that reading reviews in Shutterbug or Popular Photography helps a lot. You almost have to know what kind of photography you intend to do the most of. Also there is the site" dpreview.com" that has excellent reviews and buyer feedback on every new model. I have checked it often to find out how a particular camera performs in the real world. Not just a magazine test.

The D60 seems to be an upgrade to the D40X so if price isn't an issue, that's what I would get. But both only auto focus with lenses that have built in motors so they're limiting. The D80 is the bottom of the line that autofocuses with any Nikon auto focus lens.

The question is what kind of photography do you want to do and whether you already own any Nikon lenses.

Another issue that may effect your decision is that there is a rumor that tomorrow will bring news of the next round of Nikon release information. Depending on what Nikon announces, there might be a price drop on current related equipment.

Why Nikon? Is it because of name recognition, because although not the largest company in the business of digital cameras by far they spend the most on advertising. Hillary Clinton had at the beginning of the primaries a massive lead because Clinton was a name everyone knew, but in the end a name no one knew Barrack Obama won.

Larry Berman brings up a point many are not aware of, back in the good old days when auto-focus was about to be introduced Nikon decided to stick with their old, small lens mount design even though it limited design advantages a large opening lens mount would provide for auto-focus functions. Most other camera brands like Canon came out with new lens mount design to accommodate auto-focus. Today although the basic Nikon mount going back to their beginnings making SLR cameras will accommodate every Nikon lens, many of their lens and bodies are not compatible with all functions. No other brand has this problem.

I'm a Canon user, but that was because I have a large investment in Canon lenses and accessories from 35mm film days that all work with my Canon EOS 5D.

But would I buy a Canon if I did not have this practical, historical pre-disposition? Maybe not. If I were price/performance driven I think I'd be very attracted to Sony, a company that sells many more digital cameras in the world than any, makes their own sensor chips, and offers dSLR camera models with more performance for the buck. Or if I were most interested most in image quality, I would have a hard time not buying the Sigma SD-14. In fact that is probably the camera I would have if not so committed to Canon.

About 2 to 3 years ago I was doing a test and had four of the different brand dSLR camera with essentially the same resolution megapixel sensor chips. I shot all of them set on .Raw save and used the camera manufacturer software to convert the .Raw files to TIFFS. Once in Photoshop and tweaked a little so they had the same color balance, all four image sets from each brand camera were indistinguishable in every dimension of image quality. Maybe a reason for that was that at east two and possibly three of the brands had sensor chips that were probably made in the same factory. Most of the traditional camera brand names excepting Canon do not make their own sensor chips, the heart of a digital camera.

So distinguishing them in terms of making a personal satisfaction should maybe be on the basis of how comfortable the camera is to hold and use and how the controls fit your individual logic. Oh! you say what about lenses? Well with computer designed and manufactured optics today, there is really little to distinguish between brands, although some more sophisticated optical designs also cost more irrespective of brand.

Nikon has been around for quite sometime, and I use their optics on hunting applications as well. I know its not a real reason as to "Why Nikon?", but I truly think they make an outstanding product(I sound like a commercial...sorry).

Will the Sony cameras utilize the lenses from my Minolta 400si? I understand that Minolta sold its picture division to Sony...

Had not even thought about the Sigma line-up, I'll give them a look also.

The mountains of information in the 'stats' column are still giving me a headache. What/Which 'stat' should I be looking at the hardest?

Scott (got aspirin handy) B

Yes, Sony bought the entire photo division of Minolta, and the Sony dSLR lens mount will accept all modern Minolta dSLR and 35mm SLR lenses, however like all dSLR camera brands not all of the new cameras functions are supported by older film camera lenses. And to be honest I'm not a camera buff who has memorized every model camera and lens model so I cannot say the lenses for a particular model Minolta camera will fully support all of the new Sony dSLR functions.

The Sigma digital SLR camera being able to output 14 megapixel image files is close to the top end of available performance. It should be a serious consideration by anyone who is interested in creating the best quality images possible with a consumer digital SLR camera, but of course it is not a familiar, established, 35mm camera brand name, so few are even giving it due consideration.

The stats are totally meaningless and are published because people are impressed by big numbers even though the numbers refer to nothing that particularly affects photo image quality. Although today's dSLR cameraa look very much like familiar friendly 35mm film cameras in the past, there is really no functional relationship between film and digital - its apples and oranges, and just because a company made a film camera someone liked and got good result with, means absolutely nothing as to whether that should carry over to a digital camera.

Spent most of the night going over the Sony offerings. They actually look pretty good and will accept those lenses that I already know(and truely love to use - BIG plus there). The a350 model lookes to be nice, but I couldn't find anywhere if the mirror has a 'lock-up' feature?

The Sigma SD-14 is new and exciting, and worth more 'looking', I'll try to find one while I'm on vacation to play with.

Scott (great, more options) B