Canon EOS 20D (with 18mm (55mm lens)

Pros: Speed, Build Quality, Customizability, Image Quality

Cons: You pay a premium to have the best in it's class. The shutter is a little loud, but it shoots faster bursts than anything in its class.

Summary: Camera Setup:
Canon 20D w/

3- 1gb 80x lexar cards (80+ picture burst at 5fps in jpeg!!)

4gb microdrive, gives me 7gb of total capacity in case I get silly. About 60x write speed with the 20d

17-85mm IS USM lens. Good lens, the IS is very handy and generally nixes the need for a tripod for everyday use. My only complaint is that I have 2 pieces of small visible dust inside the lens that do not affect image quality. I just don't like to see it. This complaint is about the lens, which is otherwise pretty good, not the camera.

70-200f4 L USM lens. The best deal in image quality in the Canon line, MTF chart rivals $5000 lenses just not as fast wide open but much lighter. A great telephoto lens to carry along if you're not rich enough to have someone else haul your stuff around for you.

Canon 420ex flash. The 20d has all the controls you generally need for the flash. I may purchase a 580ex just to have a slave option and a slightly more powerful flash.

This is probably the most satisfied I've ever been with a major purchase. This camera is very fast and has great battery life. I have 3 batteries and I generally change one after a couple of weeks of snapshooting. However if I shoot all day the batteries hold out all day. The image quality is mind blowing and being able to customize controls makes the camera feel like a natural extension of my hand.

Some have criticized the lack of a spotmeter on the 20d, which is a legitimate complaint. However, the Nikon D70s spotmeter has been calculated as a 5 degree spot while the 20d's is 6 degrees. Being that the 20D smokes the D70 in every respect pretty much kills that 1 degree advantage. My friends with the D70 just can't keep up in terms of speed and high ISO image quality. Plus I have 2 million more pixels!

I can shoot beautiful, crisp images and print them at home. I have shots taken at iso 400-800 which I have been jokingly accused of ripping out of national geographic, including shots of a hawk taking off on a very dim and gloomy day. Shooting in a poorly -lit church I've been able to shoot individual and group portaits at ISO 800 and even 1600 when necessary and used the included software to perfect them by controlling any noise and finetunning the developed raw file in the included Photoshop Elements.

Overall, this is a great camera and in every way outperforms any camera out now or rumored to be coming out now including the Fuji 12megapixel DSLR.