[MartynA]

I generally use a Pentax K10D with a mixture of lenses for my photography - but I also have a small Olympus point and shoot camera and I have to say that, very often, when taking macro photographs the image produced by the Olympus is as good, if not better, than that produced by the K10D for most purposes - unless you want A4+ sized prints.

The type of lens on small cameras lends itself to Macro and the depth of field is generally greater than it would be with an SLR (although that obviously gives you more control over it). As for butterflies, it's often easier to get close with a small camera at arms length than an SLR using the viewfinder (although more recent ones with live view solve this problem).

There's always a tendancy to think that a bigger, more expensive camera will produce better photo's but that's seldom the case, as has been proved by many professional photographers who produce great images with inexpensive point and shoot cameras.

If you want better pictures of distant, moving wildlife then some sort of zoom is a necessity and if you want to take birds in flight then probably an SLR is essential as you'll be able to keep tracking the subject while taking pictures.

Take time to get to know the camera and make best use of it... learn to make use of the settings available (for example 'sport' mode is often the best setting for ANY moving object - including wildlife!)

At the time I bought the K10D DSLR I was using an FZ30 - which I still have - and I still sometimes think I managed to produce better pictures with that!

Most importantly... have fun! it IS a hobby!