After four wonderful years, I finally sold my Nikon D70. To this date, I still miss it. I got a D40 not long after, but somehow it just didn’t feel quite right. I couldn’t complain about image quality; it’s without a doubt better than that of the D70. The problem was, it felt tedious just to go through menus and look for settings for ISO, white balance, card formatting, etc. I never had that problem with my D70, as it had dedicated buttons that made settings customization a lot easier. Also, the D40 doesn’t have autofocus when I use my 50mm 1.8 lens. So after three short days of using it, I returned the D40.

Number of megapixels: Most stores, both online and brick-and-mortar, concentrate on promoting megapixels - the more, the better. This is only a marketing technique and is not always true. Let us understand why.

Ease of use is definitely a strong point with the Flip Video. There’s basically one big red button for recording, and a couple more for reviewing and deleting. The Pure Digital promo video in all it’s cutesy cartoon like style describes shooting videos as simple as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For most people it will be that easy. Simply record (big red button), upload (flip out USB), edit (software included), and share (included software emails friends and uploads to blogs or social network sites).

Of course, anytime you need a computer to do something, it’s never that easy. I’ve never had the dreaded “blue screen of death” stop me from making a PB & J sandwich. There have been numerous reports of software problems, and really slow video uploads using the Flip Video with both PC’s and Apples Macs.

Well sure, I still have to press a few more buttons to change white balance settings and format the card, and the Auto ISO is not as precise as that of Nikon’s, but it still makes for an excellent camera. Other than those three, all the other buttons which access the other features are there. I especially liked the RGB histogram because it shows individual color-clipping.

The other best feature about this camcorder, is that it’s fun. Sure, it’ll never replace your dedicated HD camcorder for shooting high quality video, but it makes up for that in other areas. You can take the Flip Video with you anywhere. It easily fits into your pants pocket, a purse or backpack. For those spontaneous and unscripted events it’s great to just whip it out and catch some really candid clips. YouTube and FaceBook fans will love it for just that reason.

I still like the D80, except the XSi wins because it’s a 2008 model and has the same features found in the pro 1DS and the semi-pro 40D. It may not be the best SLR camera ever, but it’s the best SLR camera of the moment for me.