Clive, yes, I still am thinking about upgrading to DSLR but I am still waiting to see about all the new DSLRs that are just about to be released like the D70, S3 and wait to see about availability of housing but I think probably sometimes in the 2nd half of this year. Quality wise, I assume that with less digital noise, higher quality lenses etc, DSLR should be better but that is not the main reason that I want to upgrade.
I like to take a lot of macro pictures and I find the C5050 a bit more limiting, even with stacked macro lenses. C5050 is excellent as long as the subject is at least an inch or bigger but anything smaller than that, it is not quite adequate, I think. I think with 1:1 ratio that I can get with DSLR, it would be quite a bit nicer for that pgymy seahorse that I will find one of these days. Focusing becomes a big issue also as the LCD monitor on C5050 does not have enough resolution to really see the true depth of field of the picture. I have enough occasions when I thought that the focus was dead on, when looking through the LCD monitor but I was disappointed when I finally download the pictures onto my computer. Manual focus is incredibly difficult with C5050 in supermacro or macro with stacked macro lenses.
The new crops of 8MP point and shoot camera cost just about the same as D70 and Canon D300 (I know housing, ports and various lenses will make DSLR quite a bit more expensive) so I think DSLR route is looking more and more promising in the long run.
I don't know if I have DSLR in my hand, I would get better pictures than those that I posted on this thread but I would like to think that I should get more pictures of the same or better quality (may be!). Besides, anticipating playing with a new toy is always more fun than just playing with the same old toy over and over again
