K, it’s been a fab weekend, in spite of some frustrations with the camera. She’s going back tomorrow. It’s been fun, but baby, you gots ta go. Catch up with three new pages of the Fuji test starting on page 2. If it wasn’t for Photoshop I don’t know what I would have done.
unicorn rampant
After all is said and done I have to say that this cam is great for Joe Average. If you’re a family man (or chick) taking said fam on a vacation to sunny Bermuda then by all means get this cam. You’ll be spending too much for the features you’re getting, but it’s your money.
Mental notes when digital cam shopping-
– check for autofocus lamp and/or manual focus. MUST HAVE!
– check for the whole list of manual controls including aperture and shutter priorities
– digital zoom is usually ass, not to mention essentially a gimmick. Nothing you can’t do yourself on the computer at home. Optical zoom is great, but for anything over 3x you might as well save your money and get a telephoto for the SLR.
– what the hell is FOUR AA batteries?
– there are some awesome candy features out there, like the stop-motion movie builder on Neil’s Sony. Great for making your own animated gifs. And the white-balance controls are worth it.
– look for a cam that doesn’t shut your computer down when you plug it in. That’s key.
– this isn’t news to me, but for everyone who might be in the market- anything over 3 megapixels is a waste unless you’re printing posters. Don’t forget everything you see online is only 72 pixels per inch.
– check the boot-up time. It really doesn’t have to be any longer than 2.5 seconds. More than that, and you’ll HATE the wait.
– check cycle time- most cams worth owning will tackle 2 frames per second. It shouldn’t be hard to find. And the burst mode is dreamy, and worth shopping around for.
– a moveable viewfinder/LCD monitor is really handy for crazy angles and stealthy shooting.
Me, I’m going to track down a Canon G2 even though I’m a Nikon man. I hear nothing but good things. Nikon only really takes care of you at the high-end. And Neil certainly scored with his Sony. All I can say is you have to shop around and don’t be afraid to ask a billion questions. If they show you pictures in a binder, ask for pictures of the same scene taken with the same cam. Sound obvious? It’s CRAZY what they try to pass off on you. Partly because they don’t know either, so you’ll be doing them a favour.
Yes, I’ll always ALWAYS come back to my SLR. If you know enough about photography to call yourself a hobbyist then you’ll never want to part with your good ol’ electro-mechanical “film camera”. Digital cams have been fighting for ten years to get anywhere near comparable to SLR-quality pics, but they aren’t there yet. That’s why they’ve gone to such lengths to build in the candy features. Fun to play with. I will thoroughly enjoy my digital cam when I do settle for one, but I can’t imagine parting with my Nikon F-65.
Great info on what to look for, thanks. A little too late for me, but I ended up with most of the right stuff anyways. My only complaints with digital are boot-up time. (On low resolution the time between shots is negligible.)
The zoom could zoom faster too, I suppose.
About never leaving your SLR behind. I’m sure you know what I’m gonna say here, but [aside from fondness and emotional attachment] I’ll bet in ten years you won’t pick it up much.
Digital has made huge strides, and they’re almost neck and neck at the high end. That means in ten years, digital will have far blown past SLR in extra features, while of course keeping all the important stuff.
Interestingly, there won’t be a price drop past a certain point, because if you want your digital to be able to swap physical lenses, you’re going to have to pay for that physical stuff. For which the price drops negligibly. Glass is glass, right?
I’ve convinced you to go digital, that’s step one. Step two must surely be when you stop bringing the SLR along on shoots.
Ahhh. A new challenge.
*grin*
COMMENT:
won’t happen. look at watches. how many digitals do you see these days? far more accurate, far more feature-packed, far less expensive, but where are they?
I don’t blame you for thinking that way- you are the gadget addict. But the same way audiophiles keep coming back to vinyl records you will always see photographers lugging their camera bags.
SLRs, you see, don’t HAVE low resolution.
yummy pictures! I want MORE!
“SLRs, you see, don’t HAVE low resolution”
Lovely!
um, yes and no. As for the watches…digital is everywhere, you just don’t see it. Quartz watches were invented by the Swiss. They thought they were bunk and no one would like them.
The Japanese said thank you very much and hammered the market with digital quartz watches. Now find me a watch that doesn’t say “Quartz” or “Japan movt” on the back. Gucci watches are quartz. Granted they don’t have a LCD display, but many are digital. LCD is ugly, analog is pretty, but quartz runs them all.
How do you tell? If the second hand ticks, it is quartz. (and even more obvious, you don’t wind it and it takes a battery)
Thy lesson endeth.
Nyah nyah! *sticks out tongue*
:)
but… but… “quartz” refers to the rock crystal used to ensure more accurate time measurement. How does that work into a digital watch? And you’re saying there are analog-face watches that are actually digital inside? Quoi? Are we talking about digital time measurement or just an electric watch?
Quartz is inherent to electric. Electric is necessary for digital. So yes, digital is quartz.
Well, there I go: quartz crystals in watches. Who knew? You’ve completely, absolutely convinced me to give up my SLR.
uh huh.
It’s good to see, mischiff, that you understand the important connection between digital watches and digital cameras…
one keeps time going .. the other freezes it forever..
that was so very, very deep of you, monsieur z0n. well done!