megapixels and up

I'm a fairly inexperienced camera user, and this is my second digital. My previous camera was a Canon Powershot A80, which did everything exactly as expected, and is great for the money.

I waited excitedly for months to get my hands on this camera, and, as a whole, the camera is exceptional. Image quality is great. It's also very responsive, and super easy to use (for a manual cam). You just can't beat the swivel LCD screen, (super) macro mode, and 8mp resolution.

There are, however, some things which should be mentioned:

-High noise at ISO over 200 (camera does 50/100/200/400)
-Autofocus very sluggish, making it hard to catch action shots
-Made to hold with right hand, in which it fits nicely. On the left side, however, there is no "comfortable" spot to hold the camera. Not ergonomically correct. Even bizarre. I usually just "rest" it on my hand.
-No AF assist light for focusing in low light/night time situations. This is truely bizarre, as my A80 ($300 camera) has one built in, and it works great! Seems like a ridiculous oversight...
-Alot of buttons on a small camera. Fingers may cramp.

By no means is the camera "junk", and I've enjoyed it thus far, but felt it necessary to mention these problems for others to consider.

I looked at the Nikon 8700 and the Canon Pro 1. I had them both in hand, shot pictures, compared the EVF, comfort, weight and read all the reviews prior to see the actual cameras. After a long evaluation I decided on the Canon. It just had a better feel. The camera offers a lot of features. I wanted to get back into a camera that would do something other that point and shoot, which this does very well. I also wanted to be able to adjust the apature and film speed. Creative and fun things.
The first pictures I took were very impressive. Low light visibility is good. It has a SLR feel and sound to it. Color was beautiful and th 7X optical is just perfect to be hand held.
One important thing to consider is how the camera will operate in low light. It has an AF assist, which should be on all cameral or it will not be able to focus on a particular subject and the picture will be blurred. Without getting technical, this camera can be used by a novice or a professional. It's versality is unbelievable. Also, a very important feature of this camera is its battery. It has an extremely long life and its charger is small, easily carried in a case and charges to full charge in one hour.

As a botanist/ecologist/photographer I do a great deal of plant photography. I have used Canon products for years and swear by them and rarely at them. The Pro1, though, leaves a lot to be desired for my purposes. The EOS 10D does far better even with lower resolution. The Pro1, for the purposes I need, is not very suitable. (See my review of the PowerShot S1 IS).
But as a photgrapher who has been published around the world, mostly medium and large format photographs, I think for most people the Pro1 would be a very good choice. It has excellent construction and the image quality is superb with very true color, much better than most. If you don't want to mess with RAW image processing, you can photograph using the Super high resolution Large (gives you a JPG image) and get excellent results that compare very favorably with RAW processing and none of the fiddling with RAW. The availability of a 28mm equivalent wide angle is also very nice and not all that common.
The sharpest aperature to use is f5.6 or f6.3. The images are just a hair softer at larger or smaller apertures. Even the digital zoom will produce a pretty decent image at 14x, but gets worse at maximum digital zoom. Usually digital zoom is pretty worthless, but when you start with 8 megapixels you can still end up with a suitable pixel count after all the digital footwork that goes on in the camera. But generally you are still further ahead shooting at maximum optical zoom (no digital) and cropping, if you don't mind some additional digital manipulation antics to improve things.
So, all in all, I highly recommend this camera to anyone who needs high resolution and compact size. It is a good buy. But for really good macro photography I recommend a digital SLR and a top notch macro lens. If you only do a little macro work and are not real fussy about having razor sharp images then this camera will do fine. Sometimes it would almost match the 10D, but not quite. For all other uses, the camera is great.