Quote Originally Posted by hannahrosas
I've recently begun to do some serious (but amateur) photography, and am thinknig of "upgrading" to a DSLR. But I'd like to know WHY - will I get more from it.

Pictures of places

The advantages of a DSLR are:

flexibility. You can change lenses, and so use the one most appropriate to your needs, whether it be an ultra wide for landscapes, a long telephoto for sports or nature work, a macro lens for ultra close up work or a fast short tele for portrait work

ease of bounced or off camera flash. Most compacts only have their own built in flash, which tend to give harsh results and red-eye.

speed of repsonse; many compacts have an annoying delay between tripping the shutter and the shot being exposed

high quality optical viewfinder with no paralax error

and perhaps most importantly, high image quality. DSLR have sensors that are bigger than those in comapcts, and in general, the larger the sensor, the better the image quality, especially at high ISO.