weak of will

First of all: Sod's Law.
I finally buy myself a new camera to play with two months later, Pentax release a new one with 10MP to it's name.

WTF?

Firstly, I've been taking photos with mine now for pretty much everything and at full resoultion as well, taking advantage of 1GB SD cards. Now, at full resolution, the resulting images are bigger than anything outside of an LCD HD television and even then, you'd have to be looking at the photos in landscape to see the whole thing. I can only guess at how big a full resoultion 10MP image is.
Who on earth needs that in a pocket camera?
Bragging rights?

I mean, lately, I've been taking photos at 6MP resolution and that is enough for daily use. I can't imagine many people needing to take photos of entire buildings like I do that would require an 8MP photo to maximise clarity of image.
What on earth would the average camera user do with 10MP?
Turn it down to 6MP.


Anyway.
My one looks better....


* * * * *

I've been pootering around with my lovely pentax pocket camera for a while now and hve so far taken it on site to take photos for referencing when drawing and as much as I think it is a fantastic pocket camera, I can no longer ignore the fact that it is still not entirely suitable for what I need of it.

I am also aware that I simply can't and shouldn't be spending a whole bundle of cash to buy a full of DSLR.
As as result I've been looking at the intermediate choice that sits between the pocket camera and the full on DSLR.
At the moment, this one has caught my eye




this one has also caught my eye.



The canon is a traditionally styled camera that i know has accesseries for wide angle photos, the thing that I really need. It also has a very useful 12x zoom. On the downside, it is still, while being quite small and compact, a bit too chunky. Of course I know that it comes with the territory.

Which is where the Nikon comes in.
It offers nearly the same spec as the Nikon but in their compact camera shape with the twist open to use form. A friend of mine had an older model of this camera and the best thing I liked about it was the in camera filing system that actually uses folders for you to organise your photos very much as you would on a pc. Very nice. The camera also had wide angle adapters that you fit over the lens but i'm not sure if this newer model has these.
The last time I checked, this camera is also, when closed, pretty much the same size as my old camera which isn't as small as my new one but is still small for you get in it. It loses out to the Canon in the zoom stakes only having a 10x but that's what you get for size.
it also runs on well, not as good hardware internally for the same reasons (bigger case = bigger ccd and all that). With that in mind though, the specs of both are pretty similar in terms of nubmers illustrating performance but obviously, the Canon is ultimately the better camera.

If only camera shops do test drives like they do with cars....