Some great advice in this thread. In addition to Ken Rockwell you could check out some Fred Miranda posts...it's a photography forum. They review gear and sell used gear...but it's a real photography forum.
Personally I carry a dslr...and lust for an f2 200mm and f2.8 300 mm and well...more ridiculously priced lenses.
But from my brief non-professional experience...
1) Do you want people to use your camera to take some pictures of you sometimes? Then use your phone or get a simple to use camera...family and friends will be clueless once you get past a point and shoot. And, any pic they take of you using your camera will be geeked up unless it's simple to use.
2) Having a camera is like concealed carry...do you have it when you need it? Bulkier products are more of a chore.
3) Are you going to shoot raw and process and crop your images in LR? Do you take 100's of pics and delete 97% of them, process 3%, discard 1% and save 1-2% to show others? Or do you want to shoot a pic and just email/text/whatsapp off a quick pic for facebook. The more complex your answer is like the more complex your camera.
4) Do you want action shots with eyes in focus? Or are you satisfied with the general blur of motion that's good enough. The sharper you want your pic frozen the more complex your camera.
5) Do you shoot in the shade or dark? The darker the shot the more 'noise' is noticed the bigger you make your pic.
6) Do you want to enlarge some pics? Then a more complex camera is the way to go.
I got into photography because I was tired of catching only my dog's tails with the canon elf. And, I am happy that I invested in some gear and time to capture family experiences of life. It's fun.
-JHC
