Originally Posted by
bdjohns1
One of the biggest shortcomings of the average point and shoot camera is that it can't get very wide-angle. In 35mm film terms, your average P&S doesn't get any wider than 28-35mm. The kit lenses that come with the Nikon DSLRs (and Canon, I think) are equivalent to 27mm at the wide end. However, you can get a lens which is the equivalent of 15-30mm. That's really wide. Personally, about 90% of my shooting is done from 27-75mm. My lens is the equivalent of 27-300mm.
It's the rare p&s that goes wider than 35mm. I just ordered a 0.75x wide-angle converter for my Canon G7, which will turn it into a 26-157, at the cost of a lot of weight and size (compared to a p&s, not a DSLR). I don't see any other good alternative for current p&s's if you want manual controls and reasonable image quality.