My name is Pete. I live in Wisconsin USA. I'm amateur photographer. I've owned various cameras Leika range finder, Nikon SLR, Sony point and shoot Digital, and some fall apart camera's. I like out door photography,birds animals, scenes. I've been researching SLR digitals for some time. I have been waiting for the megpix range to get up to ten and affordable. I started looking at canon and the rebel and moved on to the Nikon D80 and then Sony. Each had something but the K10D had the most features I wanted. The fact the body was sealed was an important one for me. I am not always in a dry situation and electronics and water don't mix. Image stableization was important also. The comments about the battery grip I read here and on other sites was a plus. The avalibility of lens in telephoto was a negative at least in my price range compared to other camera's. I got the 50-200 f 4.5-5.6 I will just have to see what it will do. In the mean time I will work on getting my skills up to fully utilizing the camera. Right now I'm pumped and waiting for the camera to arrive. I want to thank people on this forum for their insight and comments.