What a Camera Can't Do

_{My Canon Powershot S2 IS}

So I was on my summer vacation with my family and a good friend who enjoys photography like me. We decided to go out and shoot shots at the beach during the evening hours just to practice some low-light photography and see if we can find some interesting compositions.

My friend utilizes a Nikon D70, which is a DSLR camera with some pretty nice features. I'd compare it with a Canon EOS Rebel XT or something along those lines. My camera: Canon Powershot S2 IS...NOT a DSLR, so pretty limited. I didn't think this way at the time. When I had purchased my camera, the idea was to get a camera with good quality, virtually no shutter lag, and lots of room to learn photography and advanced settings. We didn't want something that was "too complex" until we felt that we felt that we've learned more about the more advanced facets of photography. The camera was not disappointing. It has a nice 12x zoom which comes to about 435mm (cropped) 35mm equivalent plus many manual settings and such. Prior to the trip, I believed that, other than the possibility of purchasing different lenses, there wasn't much I was missing. With my ongoing learning of digital photography, I was elated to find that so far, I've been able to apply much of what I've been learning on this camera.

However, then we started shooting. I made some manual adjustments to find that my aperture only closes down as far as F8. This could be very limiting for me in circumstances where I'd like a little more DOF (Depth-of-Field) in my shots. It also limits me when playing with slower shutter speeds. Speaking of which, I can only slow down my shutter to 15 second exposures with no bulb-mode option or anything similar. This clearly took the fun out of my night-shooting. Not that a 15 second exposure is extremely limiting, but it certainly hurts when I'm trying to get shots of lightning or make star-trails. No fun.

However, there was a feature on my camera that I wish that DSLRs would have, and that is the adjustable lcd screen. Because of the flexibility of my screen, I could get some really cool shots without having to contort my body into yoga-like positions. In any event, for a point-and-shoot camera that was half the cost of an entry-level DSLR, I think it holds it own. On the other side, I hate the thought of, with my new knowledge and desire to explore in photography, having a camera that prevents me from exploring other creative options. I suppose that mastering the stuff I can now do will allow me to get the most out of this camera until the time when I can move up to DSLR joy.