Click to view attachmentJust picked up the Canon S3 IS. It is considered a "big zoom" point and shoot, with 12x optical, 6 mexapixels. It was between this and moving up to DSLR, but this should take some good shots for now. Anyone have experiemce with these? Any tips?

Also, the sales guy recommended I go with a "high speed" SD memory card...is this really necessary, or can I just stick with my 1GB regular SD card?

Got the same camera for a wedding gift in Oct. Takes killer shots and alot cheaper than the DSLR's!
A friend of ours used hers to make a slide show of our wedding and she did an amazing job
so we got one. Still fumbling through the manual. LOL

should be fine, but moving up from that to a DSLR is like moving up from a fan to a liquid. Sure the fan can get you around and in many cases it is all you need, but it just isn't going to give you the performance of a big liquid cooled twin or triple.

The only place that will matter with the high speed card is when shooting videos. For only taking pictures, I doubt you would notice a difference.

I faced the same problem when I bought my wife a Panasonic P&S.. I bought her a high speed card for the videos and so far it's worked out great! You can get a 1Gig card for about $30 so it shouldn't be too big of an issue.

As for performance, yes, the DSLR will outperform the P&S in pretty much every way with regards to the pics themselves, but you sure can't beat the portability and ease of use, not to mention videos!

I have a Nikon D200 DSLR and absolutely love it.. but it's not going sledding with me, we take my wife's Panasonic for that.

I have the S2 IS and it is great. I have both high speed and standard cards, 1G and 2G.

The only place I've found the high speed card is better is taking continuous pictures. Other than that the standards work just dandy for stills and video.

You'll find the continuous mode great. The shutter really rips on these in continuous - if you have not tried it - check it out.

The telephoto is simply amazing. I use it at the soccer pitch and taking closes up across the field or down the field is possible. It is great being able to capture the kids faces during a big play or freeze them in the air after a kick in close up. The look of determination, the ball just starting to leave their foot with a haze of dust coming off it is amazing.

It may not be a DSLR but it is a very capable camera with a real good lens. It is the lens that really makes the Canon stand out.

This has surpassed my trusty Pentax SLR as my favourite all time camera. It is so versatile and forgiving. You can make it pretty as much manual as you want or let the auto modes do the work for you. You can get pretty creative with it and being digital I tend to take more shots, slightly different settings / angles than I use to with my SLR.

I also have a Pentax Optio WR series for sledding and the beech as it is ruggedized and water / sand proof, the S3 and S2, not!

I like it so much I'd buy the Camera again 2 years later.

Your going to like it!

My friend is a pro photog and he told me to by the Canon S3 IS....freakin kick ass camera.
I also picked up the Epsom picturemate
149.00 incredible 4x6 photos.

100 sheets of 4x6 and toner cart. 26.00