I'm looking to get a digital camera soon, but I've been having a look at some and i'm a bit confused by the idea of SLRs

How are they different to digital cameras?

SLR stands for Single-lens Reflex Camera. In easiest terms this means that the camera has a mirror inside that allows you to look through the viewfinder at your shot, and then flips to the camera sensor when you take the shot.

The good thing about this is that the shot you see and set up using the viewfinder is exactly the shot you will get when you take the picture. Rather than most compacts where the viewfinder is set away from the lens and your final photo doesn't look anything like what you wanted...

The image quality is usually better too on SLRs, but the cameras are more expensive. Perhaps theres a link there...

Have used SLRs for years, loads more features and freedom + you can buy lenses for specialist uses. Unlike with compacts where you just have the lens it comes with - which is a pretty standard lens thru necessity.

But don;t think that just because you have an SLR which is better than compacts, you will instantly take perfect shots. Its all about camera skill and technique.

My experience years ago going to a film SLR from a compact 35mm camera taught me one thing: more control means more ways to mess up the image!

While SLRs offer you far more creative control, focussing is far more critical, they are much less convenient to carry around. (to the extent that i have a digital compact as well as a DSLR to keep in my bag)

DSLRs also suffer from sensor dust. Olympus has a neat solution to this problem, but for everyone else, there's this: http://www.pbase.com/copperhill/ccd_cleaning

If you don't fancy that, i suggest you steer clear of DSLRs.

One of the biggest differences used to be that DSLRs did what you wanted when you wanted, and compacts took all day to do anything (including actually opening the shutter!) however, today, there are compacts around that are fast enough not to cause a problem, but check that the model you buy doesn't suffer from "shutter lag" by reading lots of reviews, and find out how long it takes from taking one photo until you can shoot the next.