[Peter E]

I would like to welcome everyone to the forums, and just to get the ball rolling, - two simple questions:

1. What camera do you currently have, and why did you choose to purchase it?

2. What camera would you like to have, and why?

Feel free to elaborate!

I have just bought my self a SONY A58K (CX) SLR, which has relegated my FUJI S4300 bridge (super zoom) cam to second place. Long way to go to get to grips with all its settings and capabilities yet but so far I love it, the image quality is absolutely stunning.

The reason I bought it is because my son in law bought one specially for their Mexican holiday this summer, having originally set out to spend £100 plus on a fuji like mine, but decided the old adage about getting what you pay for meant it was going to be better to spend a little more....LOL, or should I say a heck of a lot more!!
Before he showed me his new cam he insisted on showing me the professional photo book they had made up of their holiday. I was gob smacked, the quality of those photos and the depth of colour was quite outstanding. Then, big grin on his face, he produced his new A58. I fell in love! just had to get one, and set about finding the best deals in town. This camera is normally priced at a level way outside my budget, but a lot of the large retailers have brought them down to a more reasonable level, for me anyway. Argos was doing the basic cam for a good price, but not surprisingly seemed out of stock in the entire country!
Then I found John Lewis (for those us in England) were doing it for an amazing £359.99 but also it was a special deal pack, including it's SONY CX bag, (quite expensive on it's own) and a fast HD 8GB SD Card. The card was stated on the box to be class 6, but to my absolute delight, turned out to be class 10. There was also the offer to buy additional (class 10) cards for half price. I was hooked. Of course they were out of stock in the warehouse too but it only took a couple of days to get one in.

As far as the second question is concerned, at this point there is nothing I would rather have, not in the same price range anyhow. Of course that could change somewhere down the line, but for now I very happy with my A58.