Hi Welland. I'm not a 300D owner, but rather a 10D owner. The cameras are very similar in many ways so I thought my opinion may count for something, too. :-)
Prior to the 10D I had a little Nikon Coolpix 775 - 2.1 megapixels, 3x zoom, and only preset controls for "portrait", "night", etc... I asked friends and posted questions in several forums about my upgrade. Some people said don't wait for anything new, get what you want now. Some said definitely get a dSLR. But...surprisingly, a lot of people tried to talk me out of getting a dSLR - including the guy at Ritz. He was convinced I would hate it, that it was too much too spend with little to no experience, etc, etc. He tried to talk me into a ZSLR (like the S7000) and when I didn't seem interested in that he tried to get me to buy a film SLR because if I had to have an SLR, a film camera would be cheaper in case I didn't like it. Who knows what he was thinking. He had told me that a lot of people were buying the 300d's and returning them because they didn't know what they were doing and they were frustrated.
So, after all that, I ignored what they all told me and did what I wanted. I have been incredibly happy with my choice and am SO happy that I didn't listen to those who doubted it. I had never used an SLR before my 10D. I've only been playing in semi-serious photography for probably a year to a year and a half. The 10D/300D is as hard to use as you make it. There's a fully automatic mode (which I never use), aperture priority (you choose f-stop/dof), shutter priority (you choose speed), and full manual. I mostly use aperture priority...and never use manual; not yet anyway. :-) I have a lot to learn about my camera yet, but that's okay. You can learn at whatever speed works for you.
My best advice - get what you want, not what others want you to get. You will be the one shelling out the money to buy it and you will be the one using it so if you're going to spend that kind of money, make sure it's what you want. I can't stress that enough. If I had listened to 'those other people' I would probably be stuck with a great camera that I wasn't entirely happy with and furious about it, too. If you want an SLR, go for it!!
Edit: To fix bold tag.
Message edited by author 2004-09-02 19:57:15.
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