Digital cameras

slr is way better than point and shoot in many ways.......i just can't explain it to you haha

to have no delay on a digital camera you have half depress the capture (so press the butten half why down) this will focous the camera and them when you want to take the picture press down the rest of the button
and the only way you can have absilutley no delay is to get a completly manual film camera

I beleive on some higher quality cameras you don't have to depress it.

An SLR lets you look directly through the lens which you are using to take the picture via a bunch of mirrors. A point and shoot has a second lens next to the one that actually takes the picture, so there is a parallax error that can result from believing what is in the viewfinder will be the exact same as what you get. For shots with an important subject close to the camera, this can be a big problem.


Putting any camera on manual focus (if available) will result in less shutter lag. All SLR's have manual focus via the lens, I doubt many p&s's have it at all. P&s's still can have considerable lag though (at least digital ones, which by the title I assume you want to know about).


I don't know anything about Nikons.


Hope I could help out, any other questions feel free to message me or just post them here. I don't like trying to sound like a know it all, I just read a lot of photo books.

Add to this with SLR you can change lenses as needed, with a p&s you're limited to what's on camera.

I shoot a D70 and a D200, both of which are great cameras. There isn't much difference between a 50 and a 70, you're just loosing a few features. DoF preview button is the only one I can name off the top of my head, any more than that and I'd have to check specs, which you can do as well as me.

join the photo cult everything you ever want to know and more will be answered there.

Single
Llens
Reflex

SLRs are better than point n' shoots in all aspects except for one: portability. They are not as convienient but then again when you weight their size against quality then its a now brainer than an SLR is the way to go unless you're some ditsy 7th grade girl who takes pictures of herself for MSN Messanger DPs just to reassure themeselves that they're somewhat decent looking.

(rant)