Well I’ve eventually taken the plunge and bought myself a Digital SLR camera. I plumped for the Nikon D40 which has a 6.1 megapixel sensor as it produces sharp images at a very reasonable price. The kit lens supplied is very good, an 18-55mm zoom. I also bought a 55-200mm zoom to go with it plus a few filters. It takes fantastically sharp images, puts all the compact digital cameras I’ve owned to shame. The nice thing is its portraits, no sign of any red-eye and super crisp images.
I’ve also been trying out some astrophotography with it, hit a snag trying to do prime focus photography on my driven telescope as I cannot achieve focus, but I have a plan. Had some success with afocal projection and you can see some results in the photo section here.