[Howard]

Originally Posted by Saracen

Weeeeeeeell, yes. Generally.

But there are some pretty versatile "compacts". My venerable old Olympus 5050, for a start, or the current Canon G9.

I'd argue that it's not necessary to buy an SLR to be able to fully control the camera, and there are some versatile and pretty impressive compacts. But .... with a compact, you're very constrained as to the range of accessories you can use, and to their quality. As soon as you start looking at lens options, you run out of possibilities pretty quickly with compacts, and you won't find specialised options, like true macro (and particularly the likes of the MP-E65), or tilt and shift lenses, and you won't get the option for changing lens to suit circumstance. Or to upgrade the optics from generic lens to L-type and quality as your capability requires (and wallet permits).

So yeah, not all P&S cameras are suitable for learning, and there certainly are good reasons for going SLR, but it MIGHT be the best bet for some people to start with one of those versatile 'P&S' models. Not all non-SLR's are simply point-and-shoots.

Yeah true, I was generalising But many people who are into photography "graduate" from a P&S to an SLR and proceed to learn the more advanced features I guess