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Guide to your Perfect Digital Camera
Alan Dang writes "I've just posted a new digital camera buyer's guide at FiringSquad titled A Tale of Two Cameras. It explains why the digital SLR may not be the best camera for you, and helps you narrow down your holiday digital camera buying to a short list."
DSLR Cameras: $1200 and up
Point, shoot and wait cameras: $200-500
I agree, what ever happened to good old HTML? And why so much border? You have a whole browser, fill it up, I had to put my glasses on to read the text and all I wanted to know was where to get a good digital camera for around $150.
Another case of designing for the PHB. What looks good on the latest PC on a high speed connection at work, might not even show up in the browser of the average user. And did you even check to see if it runs on Macs or Linux???
I just got a D70, and am extremely happy. I already had a nice lens (Nikkor 24-120G VR AF-S Lens) and flash, so it was a no brainer. After selling my old body, it was about $500 to upgrade, and considering how much I spend on film and developing, I saved money.
Some Advantages of Digital for me (I shoot Concerts):
-ISO 1600 is very usable, enabling VERY low light pics like this one.
-Auto White Balance (or simply the ability to change it) alows me to go from outside to inside to inside w/flourescent lights
-I can carry the equivalent of 4 rolls of film on a 1GB CF card, which is more than enough most of the time.
In the US, you can purchase a Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) for $1000 with the 'kit' lense. Without the lense, I have seen them going for nearly $700 on various web-sites.
If you have a Old School Film 35mm Camera body with a plethora of lenses, then it makes sense to look at a DSLR made by the same or compatible manufacturer. It also makes sense to look at a DSLR if you are at all slightly serious about getting into photography. For either having photography as a significant hobby or to act as a lower cost professional.
Although if you have the insane dough, (often priced $10k and up) there is no reason not to look at Wide-Format Digital Backs for Wide-Format Cameras, the type typically used for Wedding and other professional photographical work.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
When I picked up my Digital Rebel (EOS 300D), I had no idea what the term SLR meant (Single-Lense Reflex BTW). What I did know was that I wanted to own and learn how to use a higher end camera with more versatility then the camera that I had.
I knew going into it that there would be much to learn and that if I stuck to it, I would be able to take some excellent images. Perhaps well enough to do some photography on the side for some extra dough in a semi to actually professional capacity.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
DPReview.com is ok. Remember, it's an equipment forum, and people there have opinions.
It's like walking into a Chevy, Ford, or Dodge dealership and asking them, "Hey, what's best?" You can predict what might happen.
Lately, there are fewer and fewer "experts" and more and more newbies. More and more complaints about Canon, Nikon and the lack of progress on this or that. Lots of rumors. If you like rumors, give the place a try. Especially with PMA coming in February.
If you want to hear people whine and complain about this, or that, you can hear that too!
Frankly, fredmiranda.com and robgalbraith.com are seem more civilized. If the search engine were worth $.25 at DPReview, I'd say go there, but it's got to be the worst search engine ever.
Someone should volunteer to help good ole Phil on that search engine.
-- No sig for you!
I have two P&S digitals, neither of which work. One is on a slow boat back to its maker for warranty repairs. Thus, I'm looking at alternatives.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
This is nonsense. The article wasn't targeted specifically at serious photographers, and even if it was, photography is among the least "right brain" of the arts. I've known quite a number of engineers who are avid photographers.
And no, flash wasn't the appropriate medium, since the entire article consisted of text and images, which straight HTML can present just fine. If some real animation had been used and not just trivial fades, then you might have a point.
Also, the writing sucked.
In graphic design (including web) clear white space is a powerful tool... Space and silence is good. Don't just fill it up just because it's there.
.. it stuck in my mind for some reason and seems relevant now.
When you're ready to come back down to earth, I once read something about web designers are always trying to shoehorn print design into web design
Designing a web page to fit in a fixed area is like designing for a piece of paper. What's the point of having different monitor resoltions, scrollbars and "fluid" layouts if you're just going to shove it in a fixed-sized box that sits in the middle of my 1600x1200 monitor, making me squint to see it? Ludicrous.
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
I think by "fill it up" the grandparent meant to use the browser window to it's full potential. This article did not; it essentially put a pamphlet, which would have been decent for print, directly online.
There were no "dramatic pauses" or clear white space in this. The information itself seemed cluttered, a result of it being restrained to a box of a certain size. This could have definitely benefited from more white space throughout, rather than just a black void around the presentation.
I hope this was originally made for print, and then just put on the web in essentially the same format in order to save time, otherwise, it was a complete design mistake from the get-go. It operates almost exactly like a book, where you have to turn the pages in order to see what you're getting next, at least a description of what the next page is going to be would have been nice.