cheers, yeah you cant go past that value for money, ive been reading a few reviews and comparos found them on ebay for around the 700 mark. and I deff want the 2.8 as I do alot of low light and shallow DOF experimenting (muckin round). another thing to add to the ever increasing tax return wish list. and also back on topic hearing your reasoning and what you would be using it for my vote would be for the canon powershot G12. had a mate who had an older top of the range powershot and it was very good, he even "cracked it" with some downloaded software and it could do some crazy stuff, very cool.