Car looks fab in the photos
Regarding image quality with DSLRs, its often said that a good photographer with rubbish camera will get better pictures than rubbish photographer with a good camera. A DSLR in auto mode is almost wasted, in fact photos may look worse than compared to a compact camera in auto mode, this is because the more expensive lens on DSLRs are very specific for focus points and aren't very forgiving, so if you leave it to the camera to pick the focus point more often than not it will not get it right. The camera will than use the focus point to work out exposure settings so that future adds to the problem.
Heres one of example I did had recently!! The camera left on Auto, focused on background, and as a result the image was out of focus and under exposed.
But get the setting right, a DSLR will produce pictures no compact can get near, mainly because the big fat lens let in more light, and the sensor is so much larger so you can get that much more detail. The ability to change the lens also allows you gives you much more chance of getting the right shot no matter what the situation ... Just a few examples of shots from this year which I wouldn't have got without a DSLR, all ranging from really close up shots to wide angle to super telephoto (I essentially carry around 3 lens with my DSLR)
Regarding uploading photos, I think what your describing is how "sharp" the image looks, and of course a high resolution image on a high resolution screen will look amazing but not quite so good when compressed for the web...but actually for printing you don't need that much resolution, the first pro DSLR only had 5-8MP and what was enough for the massive billboard prints. Theres a whole different level of science/geekyniess about how to measure the "sharpness" of a lens (different from resolution) which I don't really understand
As you can probably tell I’m a big fan of DSLRs, I personally wouldn’t waste your money on bridge cameras, I had 2 my self before my DSLR and now wish I had just gone straight to the DSLR.
If you don’t fancy carrying around a big SLR (I cannot blame for you not wanting to!!) the new “Mirrorless/Micro 4.3” camera are actually very good, and offer pretty much all the features of a DSLR but in a smaller body. They don’t focus as quick as DSLRs but overall I had a play with my mates Sony NEX5 and was impressed
…
Incidentally one of the things I really love with my DSLR is that I can literally switch the camera on, compose a shot, focus and get the shot all with-in about 2 seconds so I’m not sure why the Nikon had a hard time focusing on a static car
