Bridge cameras give you all of the drawbacks of a DSLR with none of the benefits. Their sensors are as small as a pocket P&S. Their lenses are soft, full of CA, they distort like crazy, and are so slow that the extended zoom range is almost useless unless you only shoot at high noon. There's literally no reason anybody should ever buy one.

...if you insist on comparing apples and oranges. Yes, a high-end DSLR will obviously outperform any mirrorless except the M9 because there are no high-end mirrorless cameras except the M9! That said, I guarantee that my $200 NEX-3's sensor will outperform any DSLR at that price point. And those DSLRs can't even mount any of the lenses I own. For me, the choice is obvious.

You like SLRs, and that's fine. It doesn't mean they're better, it only means you prefer them.

Honestly, manual focus on my Sony NEX is faster than autofocus on the SLRs I've used. Instead of cycling through AF points, you just focus the lens until what you want in focus is highlighted on the screen. It's pretty impressive.

Haha, you're worried about 6 incompatible lens standards? That's nothing. Back in the day, you had Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Konica, Olympus, Contax, Fuji, Leica M, Leica R, Pentax, M42, and a bunch more less common ones.

Anyway, mirrorless cameras can literally mount any lens ever made for any system. Incompatibility is a non-issue.

Sonicwall is awesome if you enjoy having to bring VPNs back up manually whenever a connection drops for any amount of time.

Right, and I can see how that would make it confusing for kids. And from what I remember, my elementary school teachers pretty much used the equal sign the same way, as a generic "answer goes here" sign...that can't help.

They do have 4x5 backs, but they're basically small flatbed scanners and are still pretty expensive. When I shoot 4x5, I only do a few sheets at a time anyway, so developing and scanning isn't too big a deal.

I said this before, but I don't think I could pay that much for processing even if I tried. Even on the high end, $5-10 is more accurate, and it can definitely be done for less than that.

No. People don't shoot medium format film the same way they shoot digital. MF film shooters take their time and only take photos of things that are worth taking photos of, instead of mashing their machine gun 1523fps shutters in hope that they get lucky.

Scanning doesn't take as long as weeding through your 4000 digital photos of the same thing, looking for the best one. I know, I've done it both ways.

Actually, most Hasselblad users at this point probably are amateurs. The prices of the gear have gone down so much that these cameras are very affordable for hobbyists.

I'm not trying to make a "film is better than digital" argument here (both have their merits, and I believe film is the better choice for some applications), just want to stop the spread of misinformation. There seems to be a lot of it in here.

You should get their Arista EDU film instead. Its rebadged Fomapan and a dollar cheaper.

What the hell? The most expensive rolls of 120 slides are around $10, most of them are closer to $5. Processing shouldn't cost any more than $10, and the professional lab near me charges $5.

I don't think I could pay $35 for film + processing even if I tried.

It costs 90 cents with Fuji Labs via Wal-Mart. Takes a week or two to get it back, but the quality is excellent.

If you can't wait that long, there are two labs near me that charge $4 and $5. Certainly not "a lot more..

35mm film certainly won't have that type of resolution, but medium format and larger should.

My crappy flatbed tops out at around 2400dpi (it can do higher resolutions, but IMO it doesn't really see any more detail beyond that) , which creates a 29 megapixel file from a 6x6 frame. The Nikon scanner that the parent mentions can do a lot better.

Hasselblad still makes film cameras today that are mostly compatible with the models they made in 1957. They have been given updates, but can accept most of the same accessories, including backs.