Sony A100

Good – Very good camera to cut your teeth with. In low light use a flash and don't bump up the ISO. Takes very, very good photos in the right hands. Price / Performance. SLR freedom of lenses. ISO 100 shots are excellent. ISO 200 very good. Battery life is excellent. I normally always buy a second battery, however they seem to last forever! Low light shots require high ISO. High ISO shots, 800 and above are poor. (Use flash instead)

Good – Looks good, when working performs well, can't wait for software update to resolve bugs.Minolta-10 points, Sony only 4 I like it's minolta heritage, it is much faster than my Dimage 7 Out of the box after 20 shots the electronics had a major failure and camera was replaced. Using SD to CF adaptor with 8 Gig SD card is unreliable will take pictures then when reviewing says card unreadable intermittently and you think you have lost your shots. Take the card out and put it in a card reader and the pictures are there. Looks like there are some software issues with 8Gig, works OK with 4Gif CF. My Minolta D7 although slower, never let me down. Not confident to use it for serious one off shots you can't repeat.