Canon 1000d. Not sure about the braketing (Must admit to not understanding this yet) but i presume it has

Ahh, just read up. Actually yes it does have this. Doesnt really offer more than the raw file that is edited for highlights and then for shadows and then combined.

I suppose thats one of the things about photography and its black art. There seems to be a multitude of techniques to achieve similar if not identical effects

True enough. It’s all about using techniques and technology to a creative end. It’s easy to lose sight of the latter sometimes.

It took me at least two weeks of reading and re-reading the user manual and then messing around to get to grips with everything on my camera…

I suppose thats one of the things about photography and its black art

I would counter that in fact every stage is a physical, explainable process, but what makes it interesting is the emergent end result which can make the means irrelevant

Consider myself countered