We’ll be doing a review on compact cameras versus digital SLR kit. Now first thing you gonna notice of course is the built and the size of these two cameras. Now the G7 is very light and very small, very easy to fit into a pocket or carry along with you on your vacation. I would much rather carry this on vacation than this camera, that’s for sure. If you just turn on the camera and like to shoot pictures, then the compact is the camera for you. Now of course the build on this is all plastic, and it’s got an okay hold, it’s better than most compacts because this is an advance compact handle, it’s the G7. But the hold and the build is nothing like the D80 that you will get. This feels a lot more, a lot more, a lot better in my hand if feels balance even though it’s a lot heavier and a lot larger. I feel like I can, I really got a hold of this it’s really sturdy in my hand and I can definitely hold it much stiller than I could do with this. The build itself is a lot better with the digital SLR, it’s built to be use a lot and it’s built to last. And it’s, you know, it does look big and bulky, but it’s not clunky at all. All the controls are very well place on it and it’s very, very, very well built, like I said. Now, I’m gonna go over a couple of the really major differences between the compact and the digital SLR. And probably the most different thing about them is that digital SLRs are called SLRs for a reason and that’s because they have interchangeable lenses. Which means I can take off the lens and replace it with a different lens. So I can take off the lens and put a different lens on it. Now the advantage of being able to take off the lens means that you can switch it out with one of hundreds of Nikon’s other lenses. So you have hundreds of choices of different lenses for this Nikon camera. Ranging from beginner all the way to professional level lenses. Now with the G7, it also comes with little replacement lenses on it that can convert it to wide or telepho, you just take this off and then you can put a teleconverter on here the specially built for the Canon G7. But there’s only two of those compared to the hundreds that Nikon has, hundreds of different lenses that Nikon has. And of course this is a fix lens, so you just gonna this lens on here, it doesn’t come off at all, and you get one focal range, which this one has a 6x optical zoom. And there’s other cameras that 3 or there’s one that have even 15 optical zoom on them. Now we’re also gonna go over the controls on the cameras a little bit. This is an advance compact camera, so it’s gonna have a lot more controls than your average compact camera. But most compact cameras, you just turn them on and you shoot the picture, you don’t really need to control them at all. With the more advance compact camera there’s more controls on it, very similar to a SLR camera and what that does is basically it can controls how you take your picture and what your pictures gonna look like when it comes out. Now the digital SLR of course you’ll gonna have a lot more control over your picture. There’s a lot more functions on it, there’s a lot more buttons that you will find on here. A lot more settings and different features that you can use with the digital SLR compared to a compact camera. Now the ma… one of the major differences between these two cameras is speed, consistency and precision. Now of course with the digital SLR, you’re gonna get all three of those are gonna be a lot better than with the compact camera. Even on an advance compact camera. For instance the frames per second on this camera is 3 frames per second and it can take that up to a hundred jpeg images. Now this camera, since it’s an advance compact camera can do 2 frames per second which is neat, but it does not have as large of a buffer it might be able to take, you know, 20 jpegs instead just a hundred. But most normal compact cameras around 300, 200 dollar range, will not have continuous shooting and usually after you shoot it takes a couple, like about a second, before you can take another shot. Now, in terms of speed of turning on, that’s a good example of speed on the cameras and the differences. Now I’m gonna turn on the Canon G7, and I’m taking, I'm gonna take a picture as fast as I can, I’m also gonna do the same on the Nikon D80. So I’m gonna turn on the G7, and that’s how fast I can take a picture on the G7. Now the G7 is definitely a lot faster start than normal compact cameras, of course normal compact cameras would take a lot longer, maybe twice as long to start up. Now I’m gonna show you what an SLR is like when you start it up. And that’s how fast I can take a picture on this, which is reasonably faster than the G7. Now, of course you’re gonna get consistent and precise result with the D80, and why that is just because it’s a more professional feature, like its autofocus system and its image processing does a lot better job than it would in the normal G7,or normal compact camera. It reads it a lot better, it reads the exposure and white balance a lot better, and the autofocus is a lot more precise than on compact camera. So you're gonna get pictures, if you take pictures a lot, you're really gonna like that difference in consistency and results. But if you really don’t take pictures and you just like to take pictures for fun and stuff like that, then the compact camera is fine. There’s not really a huge difference unless you take a lot of pictures of course. Now I’m gonna move on to the image quality a little bit and it’s not major difference, and there’s no difference in resolution whatsoever between the cameras. This has 10 megapixels and this, or, yeah, and this has 10 megapixels. There’s no difference there. Where the difference comes in is the size of the sensor. Now I’m gonna show a example right here, these are the two different sizes of the sensor. This is the sensor in the D80 and this is the sensor in the Canon G7. As you can see there’s a real big difference in size there. And that’s what makes the D80 so bulky in the body and that’s what, and that’s why the D80 has to take such large lenses. It makes sense now, considering it has a larger sensor, it needs a larger body and a larger lens. Whereas the Canon G7 has a smaller sensor and has a smaller body and a smaller lens. That’s why a digital SLR is so much larger than a compact camera. Now, what you get from this larger sensor? Well you get better light retention. This sensor has bigger pixels of course than the Canon G7. And being so, you're gonna get a lot more accurate exposures and accurate, more accurate light balance. You're also gonna get better sharpness with this sensor and you're gonna get a lot better noise control with this sensors since it’s a lot larger. And you can really see the difference in noise in a picture about 11 by 14. Now, but really to tell you the truth, if you just print out pictures 8 by 10 or 11 by 14, a compact camera should be plenty for you. If you really gonna print pictures out big, like 13 by 19 to 20 by 30, then a digital SLR, you will definitely be able to see the image quality difference between this and a compact camera. You’ll see sharper results, less noise, you’ll see a much smoother tone in the picture compared to this, which will be at large, large prints will be grainy. And you will definitely see better color accuracy with a digital SLR camera. Now the question is which one should you get? Now of course, if you are the type of person who just takes a camera on vacation, just take pictures of your kids, or for instance, you’re, you know, going to a party, you wanna take pictures with your friends and stuff for fun. Then that’s a definitely a type of situation where you gonna want to use a compact, because you’re not gonna print out large pictures of that. And you’re not gonna really need the speed and consistency of an SLR camera. Now if you’re more of a photographer type of person, and you wanna do it for art reasons and you do it all the time. Then you’re definitely wanna consider a digital SLR like the D80, where you get faster, more consistent results with better image quality at larger prints and also more control and a better body build. Now of course if you want, if you’re on a budget, of course, and you want the results that an SLR will give you, Nikon has actually introduced what’s called Nikon D40. And it is a very small SLR camera, it’s definitely not as big as this, it’s called supersize of a compact camera except it still has the 1.5 sensor here that you’ve find in the D80 except at a much less price. You can get it for 500 dollars, which is the exact same price as this camera here. So if you’re on a budget and you want that image quality and the speed of a SLR, then you should probably consider the D40, which is like I said only 500 dollars. And this has been a review between a compact and digital SLR camera.