There is actually a huge market of people who have been left out in the cold waiting on Apple to come out with another webcam solution to the first generation iSight camera which was external and mounted on top of your display.... and now goes for a hefty price on eBay.
The pricing and features are actually pretty impressive. This would definitely be a good add-on to my PowerMac G4 (which still runs better and faster than my wife's 1-year old PC in every application).
The 40D is really nice, a friend of mine uses it in his photography business shooting weddings. Another friend of mine uses the D80 for shooting just about anything and everything. (not saying that the 40D isn't capable of doing that, just stating their particular uses) The catch22 with buying a DSLR from one or the other, is that they leapfrog each other each year.
The other catch to buying any DSLR is that it won't be long after you buy it that there will be something else that comes out that is bigger better and faster.
I love my Nikon's (have a D2H and a D200). I bought my D200 and it wasn't even 6 months later that they announced the D300. It's just the nature of the technology. I always tell people to hold each of the cameras that they're considering to purchase, which feels better in hand with a lens mounted on it. The weight, location of buttons, ease of navigation in the menus, etc. The next thing I always advise on is to look at the line of lenses, is there a lens that you would need want that the other doesn't have?
Right now, as far a I know, no other camera maker has a lens equivalent to Nikon's 18-200mm VR lens, I would definitely recommend it over the 18-135mm mostly because there will be times where you will need the extra reach of the 200mm zoom.
To sum it up, buy a camera for the body, stay for the lenses. The body will not retain its value, your lenses will. Buy into a system that you're comfortable with, the feel, the weight, the ergonomics of the controls, and invest in REALLY nice glass. The camera will be obsolete before you get it out of the box, the lenses on either system will last you a lifetime.
I would recommend the Nikon D60 or D80. Everyone will argue back and forth why Canon is better than Nikon, why Nikon is better than Canon, then every nowandthen someone will pop up endorsing the Olympus or Sony or Pentax lins.
I would definitely say to stick with either Canon or Nikon if you really want to learn about photography and do a lot with it. For the most part, all DSLRs in the same class can pretty much do the same things and give you the same results... how you get to those results will differ though. I use a lot of customized settings and on all of my Nikons, even my ancient D50 and D70 (now shooting with a D200 and D2X), the ability to set custom settings have always been at your finger tips and not burried in confusing menus like Canon's have been. This may have changed or be about to change, but this is a common complaint from my friends who shoot Canon, it takes them 3 and 4 times as much time and effort to set custom settings as it does for me.
Megapixels don't matter unless you're planning on having poster sized prints made. Megapixels does not mean increased image quality, it means larger image size and gives you the ability to make larger prints without any pixelation/distortion/loss in quality and sharpness. A good friend of mine's mom just bought a used Nikon D70 and right out of the box she's been making excellent images.
I personally believe Nikon's system is easier to use for newcomers. But pretty much you have to decide this for yourself. The best thing I can say to do is go down to a professional camera store in your area, not a Wolf/Ritz or Best Buy, hold the cameras that are in the price range you're looking in, see what feels best in your hand. Are the buttons and knobs in comfortable locations for you, which feels more natural to hold.
Lastly, I definitely would not recommend a camera that has vibration reduction/anti-shake built into the body. The only time VR(nikon) or IS(canon) is really needed is when you're shooting with a telephoto lens. When you're using a normal zoom lens (like an 18-70mm) this feature is pretty much useless and in a lot of cases will actually generate worse images. Plus, I've never seen or heard of a single pro who uses these types of cameras and they don't for a reason.
I suspect that your iMac is going to last you much longer than you expect.
I used to build and rebuild my PCs from the ground up every 6 months or so for years just so that it would run (windows) efficiently.... and always using high end parts available at the time.
Today, I'm running an almost 8 year old PowerMac G4, that I have upgraded the hard drive from UltraATA to Serial ATA, I've upgraded the graphics card several times, I've burned through several optical drives, upgraded the RAM, and have even upgraded the processors.... and all of these I was able to do much more easily, and much more quickly than I was ever able to do in a PC.... and never had any issues afterwards. Everything just kept on running. (this last paragraph is mostly directed towards those who were ranting that Macs can't be upgraded.....)
Anyhow... By now, if I hadn't drop kicked my PC out my apartment window when I did.... literally, I did... I would have spent hundreds of hours, and exponentially more money building PCs over the past 8 years.
And to boot.... my 8 year old PowerMac loaded with Leopard runs circles around my wife's 1-year old Dell running Windows XP in every application. To this day, the only time my Mac shows its age, is when I'm doing heavy graphics work in CS3. Apart from that, every other function blows a newer PC away. Other than games which I don't give two squirts of piss about anyways.
So yeah... in short... I think you'll have your iMac for much longer than you expect and will definitely get your money's worth out of it. For your very reasons though is part of why I opted for the full desktop system, plus the upgradeability.
Software updates are free. And what has been hailed as the greatest consumer operating system on the market is fully featured and a thousand times more stable and built for sheer performance for a fraction of the cost that that bloated turd Vista is.
As for hardware updates. I'm running an 8 year old PowerMac G4 that runs OSX Leopard, Adobe CS3, MS Office 2008, and a slew of other usually apps all at the same time, and it runs circles around my wife's 1 year old PC, which has actually been decked out with all high end parts and a buttload of memory. Try doing that on an 8 year old PC running Vista...... oh, you can't. Sorry to hear about that. But, hey, thanks for playing.
"I am looking for the best geotagging camera currently available. The most important feature for me is the accuracy of the GPS module, so any hard specs on satellite receiver would be really useful. Thanks for your time!"
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