Sony SLT-A55

nitpicky stuff...- the camera bag that comes with this kit is good, but too small for both lenses and the camera.

The A55's top plate features the aforementioned shutter release button encircled by an on/off switch that visually apes the zoom levers found on some compact cameras.

but i recomend to buy a wide angle zoom lens because the included lenses has a limitation when you use them in a small room and when you use the camera for video.

The defining difference between the two categories is a mirror: in ILCs, light travels directly through the lens to the sensor, while in dSLRs, the light is either reflected up into the viewfinder by a mirror or allowed to directly hit the sensor for capture if the mirror is flipped up.

For high ISO sensitivities, Sony has vastly improved its noise-reduction feature in recent cameras.

At ISO 3,200 photos look acceptable unless you've got a lot of fine detail or edges where softness will be too obvious.

The Camera is "fast", focuses fast, provides great color reproduction, captures moving objects nicely (such as Ducks taking to flight, or Deer trotting through the woods, or your grandchild throwing a football).

There are a couple of caveats - the focusing can be heard on the soundtrack, although using an external microphone gets around this, it sometimes struggles to keep up with the subject, and more notably the shallow depth of field that's inherent to a large-sensor camera produces noticeable and often unwanted "jumps" as the AF system locks onto different subjects in the frame.

There are some limitations of this ambitious design, most notably the almost complete inability to pan with your subject, limited creative control over movies, and rather noticeable jumps in focus if using continuous auto-focus during video recording, but overall the first-generation A55 feels remarkably mature.

& slightly smaller size are wonderful, and the Menu's of selections seen in the Viewfinder or LCD Screen are straight forward for the most part, and easy to use.

This combination means that the A55 can offer full-time DSLR-like focusing speeds, even during video recording, plus an excellent Live View system with 100% scene coverage and an amazingly fast continuous shooting rate of 10fps, whilst being physically smaller and lighter than a comparable DSLR.

The EVF is probably the best I've ever used.

As a parent I take lots of pictures of events my kids are involved in and in fact have become the unofficial/official photographer for most of these events and let me say the 10 fps shooting speed is fantastic other parents and kids are so impressed I have made prints for several of them.

I also take a great deal of nature shots and landscapes and this camera delivers the goods.

The Sony A55 is a great marriage of new and old, competitively priced to take on the best that mid-range DSLRs and Compact System Cameras can offer, and surpassing both in many ways.