Slashdot Mirror
10 Reasons To Buy a DSLR
Kurtis writes, "If you're planning on getting a digital camera for yourself this holiday season, here's 10 reasons why you should choose a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera instead of a point-'n'-shoot. DSLR cameras are obviously not perfect for everyone. This article also has a couple of small blurbs about who shouldn't buy a DSLR, and a few things that could be deemed negative aspects of DSLR cameras."
I can't agree with this article more. Since moving from film to digital SLRs my photography has really grown because shooting digital blows away all of the risk and gives you much more creative freedom when it comes to experimental exposures such as low light photography, action photography and more. I find myself taking far more pictures and experimenting more with digital and then simply throwing away the bad experiments than I did with film because of the costs associated with film. The other thing about Digital SLRs is that in addition to the higher quality optics, the actual imaging sensors on the CCD are physically larger leading to much higher quality images than are possible with point and shoots that may possess higher megapixel counts, but have smaller physical sensor sizes.
If you are going to make the move to a digital SLR, I also highly recommend the Canon 20d/30d cameras as a good system to begin exploring a variety of different photographic styles from outdoors to action to macro and still life. You really cannot go wrong with some of the other manufacturers like Nikon with their D70/D80 and Sony, but Canon, like Apple tends to build the entire widget from the glass to the camera to the imaging chips. Additionally, I tend to like the color representation from the Canon Digic imaging chips. If you are planning on shooting less outdoor work or in less rigorous environments, I'd suggest introducing yourself to digital SLRs with the lower end Rebel (or Nikon D50) series which is still pretty nice hardware, just not as ruggedly built. (I've also heard rumors that Nikon is going to introduce a new lower cost D40).
For a sample of some of the images possible with the Canon 20d/30d, almost all of the images on my blog that were taken by me have been captured with the Canon 20d and associated hardware. I also have a Canon hardware list at the top of my FAQ here that may be helpful for those that are interested in some of the lens options.
The negatives that the author of the linked article writes about are also true. Hauling around all of your camera gear to various spots on the globe does get a bit harder with more (and heavier) gear. I just got back from a trip to Argentina at the foot of the Andes (pics to be posted tomorrow morning) and it does take a bit more effort to pack everything you need to take with you. The gear addiction and associated costs do not stop at the camera body and lenses either. You will find yourself buying tripods, monopods, backpacks, filters, flashes, books, more books etc...etc...etc....
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I wish I'd waited until I could get a SDK for my camera. Turn off all that useless programming I don't want and set it up to behave the way I need it. Nikon D70s takes nice pictures, but sucks for Astro or Low light photos.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1 - price
2 - price
3 - price
4 - price
5 - price
6 - price
7 - price
8 - size
9 - power requirements
10 - no Kodachrome or T-max 3200
Don't get me wrong: I'd love to have a DSLR (especially one compatible with my old K-mount SLR lenses), but so far, the reasons not to buy one have out weighed the reasons to buy one. I'm sticking to my compact battery-sipping 35mm SLR and my "prosumer" non-SLR digital for now.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
This is all well and good, but can someone please tell me who the paranoid is that keeps tagging everything with 'itsatrap'?
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
DSLRs can't shoot video clips, because of the way they take pictures. (Regular digital cameras, meanwhile, are finally able to shoot some relatively decent video without being limited to a few seconds.)
It will cost you at least $1000 to get a unit with decent dust-prevention equipment, maybe as much as $1200. That will get you a sexy 10MP DSLR, but I know that if I had that kind of money, I'd have more important places to spend it.
I recently looked at some Digital SLRs, and if anyone is considering buying a current-generation one for personal use, I'd say buy the cheap one (the Canon.) This is the third generation and they finally added a dust removal technology (to remove dust from the image sensor) ... and it's $200 cheaper than the competion.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Until lenses improve on cell phone cameras, you need both types of digicam if you are into photography. You need a pocket sized camera... no one would ever take an SLR camera on a serious hike, out to a bar, mountain biking, skiing, etc. On the other hand, only an SLR will give you the flexibility to express your artistic side.
It is better to have some slightly less snazzy snapshots of you and your friends with a compact camera then to miss out on photographing the occasion altogether because the camera is too big to lug around.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It's irrelevant, and it's not funny. I've been tagging similarly mistagged articles with "shutupwithitsatrap," and "!itsatrap."
The tag was already overused when it was remotely relevant, but today's usage is idiotic.
And yes, I acknowledge that this will be modded off-topic. I have some karma to spare.
This message printed on 100% post-consumer recycled electrons.
When the article contains remarks like this:
Most digicams are plastic, plastic, and more plastic. They feel flimsy and they're not all that hard to break. DSLRs are built to much higher standards
then you can tell that it is not particularly helpful at all. A great many 'digicams' are very nicely constructed. For example, the rather lovely Lumix range from Panasonic/Leica, one of which I am lucky enough to own, are extremely well constructed and are largely made from metals and special composites which do not feel 'plastic' in the least. They also have excellent ergonomics and performance. Many smaller cameras are also very nicely constructed, often from metal - the Canon Ixus range comes to mind.
I agree that DSLRs are nice, and I plan to acquire one myself. But it is not helpful to publish a list of 'reasons' which are little more than vague assertions that A is better than B, without taking into account either reality, or the very valid reasons why B might be preferable for many people.
Read Pynchon.
CCD has better range and colors, then that of CMOS. Though top end of Canon's offering matches Nikon's.
... ...
1. Quality of images.
2. Better control of parameters
3. Choice of lenses for the variety of situations.
4. Speed - often point and shoots take a while to recylce the flash.
5. Ability to use professional flash.
6. Women like to pose for DSLR then to teensy point and shoot.
7. Batteries last longer, usually.
8. Speed of focus, at least on nikons it is excellent, so you don't loose the moment.
9.
10.
Convenience.
I love my Nikon D70 (especially since I used hotel points to buy it), but for every shot I get that others don't have a chance because of shutter speed or ability to use another lens, there's one that I missed because I didn't consider lugging out my camera bag for some event. With compact cameras being as small as ipods these days, I'd recommend that you start with one of those first, and when you want to take it to the next level, get a second camera as a dslr.
11. You can't just point and shoot.
My brother has both, I got him a cheap point & shoot for £50 (post xmas, great time to buy), being a photo snob he later got himself an £N00 DSLR. Guess which gets by far most use. The point&shoot is tiny so its always there.
BTW, THE most important aspect of a digital camera is... battery life. There are loads of cameras with decent lenses, millions of pixels yada yada yada but they never tell you the battery is only going to last 20 minutes.
Deleted
With the Wireless IXUS the shot can be set up with a nearby notebook screen as viewfinder, with the picture taken straight into Photoshop, from some distance away, no camera shake, fiddly buttons, 'disturbed' subject or memory cards needed. Cool if you only want 5 megapixels, and have the ten minutes spare to boot up the PC and launch photoshop...
Incidentally, no other camera has the wi-fi features of the wireless IXUS.
Since my teen years, I've had an SLR. For my wife's 30th bday I bought her a reasonable quality (Pentax) weatherproof aoto load auto focus auto flash PAS. Of course I turned my nose down and continued to use my SLR with clunky lenses and flash etc. So, often, my camera stayed at home in the closet while hers was handy in a pocket, handbag etc. I still have the SLR but I have not used it for over 8 years now.
About 4 years ago we decides digital was worth it. Got a Canon PAS + Zoom. It does a great job and is always handy. A DSLR would just get left behind.
The only time you want a DSLR is if you want to take professional pics. Professionals only account for a few % of the camera toting population.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
In college, my high school girlfriend went to Miami (Florida) and I went to a school in Dallas TX; we spent all the breaks together, and other than that we didn't see eachother. Since this time was special to us, we took a lot of pictures. She owned a Casio Exlim camera basically a point and shoot the size of a credit card x 1cm thick, I a Canon Powershot A80 - about as big as three decks of playing cards stacked together. After the first day, the Powershot got left behind, and we ended up taking over a thousand pictures (many retakes) over the course of the week.
Now, if you're shooting a wedding, prom, or family reunion pictures, something many people will see, or will go in a frame on display, I'd definately bring out the Powershot, or consider getting a DSLR.
But the fact of the matter is that BIG Digicams don't go to the bar, to the beach (unless your girlfriend's friends are really hot), skiing, etc. Too expensive, too BIG, too fragile. A two year old $200 point and shoot is ok to risk for these sorts of things. Being smaller, you can talk your girlfriend in to sticking it in her tiny ass purse/clutch, or stick it in your pocket at a bar/club if she doesn't bring her purse. Good luck talking her in to carrying around your DSLR with 80-300mm zoom lens. Yeah, the DSLR takes fucking fantastic pics, even on auto mode, but what are the chances you're actually going to bring it with you everywhere?
My recomendation, buy the cheaper model DSLR from canon for your artsy shit, and spend what you just saved on a 3MP point and shoot with a rechargeable battery and docking station (that charges it)... my Reccomendation is last year's Casio Exlim... My girlfriend has over 10,000 photos on her current 4MP model, and another 8,000 on her previous 3MP model... very durable.
No, I don't work for Casio. The Canon Powershot A320-ish series is pretty good too.
moox. for a new generation.
Of the points raised in the article, I found the viewfinder the most convincing reason to get a DSLR. Live preview on a screen is not a replacement, especially in the dark, when a screen can kill your night vision. It's also very quick once you get used to it, and I've found the difference is particularly apparent with long lenses. Be aware, though, that not all DSLRs are equal in this respect: so far, of the established makers, Canon have been poor, Nikon average, and Pentax have really emphasised a good, bright viewfinder in their mainstream DSLRs. That may change, of course - the new Nikons are catching up.
Another key point is that you're not just buying a camera, you're buying in to a system, so the lens range needs to be taken in to account, in the long term. You're not going to be happy with the "kit lens" for very long.
(this is not a
So you get the average tags rather than the tags of people who have previously tagged things similarly. Just consider it tag pollution, it'll be included in the kyoto protocol, meaning you're stuffed if you live in the US.
Deleted
itsatrap
You seem to be confuse the image sensor type (CCD vs CMOS) with the mirror / lens arrangement (SLR vs. "digicam").
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I wouldn't actually use it.
Seriously, I'm normally a gadget freak. I love anything I can tinker with, especially if it appeals to my creative side. But I somehow managed to call up enough restraint a few years ago to get the tiniest decent-quality camera I could find (a Minolta Dimage Xt, just a little larger than an Altoids tin), and I couldn't be happier. When I'm at a party, family event, wandering a random city on vacation, etc. I can just stick it in a shirt pocket, enjoy myself, and pull it out to take snapshots whenever I feel like it. I don't have to lug around a huge bulky camera in a huge bulky bag, which would be such an annoyance that I'd probably end up leaving it at home (or setting it down somewhere after taking a couple of posed shots and not touching the damn thing all night).
Is my tiny auto camera perfect? Of course not. It takes pretty decent quality pictures, but it's not pro quality, and the shutter lag is annoying. But realistically, a camera that takes a bazillion vivid megapixels with no lag isn't going to do me any good if I don't have it handy when something funny, surprising, or interesting happens.
the lens that comes with most DSLR's is utter crap. the Rebel comes with a lens that makes the point and shoots look bad, but it is complete crap compared to a $250.00 Prime lens.
Granted, the most expensive DSLR is cheap compared to a good lens, and that trap can bleed you dry on your new hobby.
But, if you get a DSLR I strongly reccomend that you get a 60mm prime (I reccomend a 1.8 or faster but most people cringe at a $600.00 or more lens) and see what your DSLR camera can really do.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
For the vast majority of us not only is a DSLR overkill, but it will actually result in less pictures being taken because of an unwillingness to lug it around. If you primarily take pictures for vacations, picnics and such then you will likely be more bothered by a DSLR than you will be enamored by its superior picture quality or manual adjustments. Don't buy into the hype: DSLRs are great technology but only useful for the one-percenters who consider themselves photographers and not picture takers.
Don't be stupid. Noise matters a lot if shooting in less than perfect illumination conditions. There's nothing more annoying than blacks with blue spots on them or green-dotted skin.
In answer to 1 through 8, wait a week. Rumor has it that Nikkon's about to anounce the D40 (leaked images all over - check out dpreview.com).
By dropping the sensor resolution way down and ditching the bells and whistles you wouldn't find in similarly priced compacts either, they're looking at launching the first sub $500 DSLR.
For digital compact users who think DSLRs are too expensive - it's no around the price of a decent digital compact, no more.
For film SLR users who think DSLRs are too expensive, it's down to a few dozen rolls of film price difference and far less than the cost of a single great lens. Shoot clear of about a thousand shots, you'll save money with a DSLR.
As for power consumption, I'm not sure what's holding you back?
Batteries are rechargable so there's no real cost.
They last a reasonable length of time. A battery grip like the "big ED" holds a pair of batteries so it's down to one change every couple of hours.
Changing batteries is no more painful than changing film. If you shoot at any kind of speed you'll have to change rolls of film far more frequently than you'll have to change batteries. If you don't shoot that fast, your camera will go to idle mode and you'll get many hours of use out of a single battery.
Finally, yes, great film is still great. But, aside from its price, there are two main arguments against it:
1) No instant feedback. Say you're using ISO 3200 film to capture fast falling water droplets. Until you develop the film, you've no idea if you actually caught the instant. With digital, the proof's right there for review. It kind of sucks to finally develop film only to realize you didn't catch what you thought you did and have no way to practically recreate the shoot.
2) OK, you've loaded your camera with ISO 3200 film for a specific shot. The building rumbles, a plane has crashed outside. You spend the next couple of minutes trying to wind your film through, get it out without ruining your existing shots, searching for the ISO 200 that you didn't think to bring with you anyway. By the time you're ready to shoot, the drama of the once in a lifetime shot has long since past. Your buddy with a DSLR slides the dial to ISO 200, steps outside and gets the award winning shot. Sure, planes crashing are extreme examples - but life's filled with amazing unexpected moments that DSLRs let you get whilst changing film will miss many of them.
The world's moved on. Those arguments were fair enough for the first couple of generations of DSLRs. Honestly, it's now reached the point where it's like saying, "Steam gives better torque than internal combustion engines. I'm not going to buy one of those new fangled cars when my stanley steamer car works just fine." If you're determined to reinforce your preconceptions, you can probably just about find justification - but the rest of the world's moved on and for good reason.
My D70 with a powerful Nikon flash on top takes kick ass pictures where a point-n-shoot just can't throw enuff light. Hot chick waaay across the room? No problem. The flash will throw enuff light and the camera will make it look like Ansel Adams took it. Right up in someone's grill? No prob. DSLRs handle the flash and won't have any bright spots. Essentially, it doesn't matter if you're totally clueless on how to use it you just get killer results.
Problem is that at any kind of event, as soon as you walk in with an SLR with a flash, you always get "Oh, the photographer is here" comments. You just can't be discrete toting one of those things around.
But, drunk girls at 3 frames per second never fails to yield interesting results. The 'model instinct' naturally comes out and nasty sh$t starts to happen....
Superior optics. Period. Everything else is a nice to have, e.g. take 1000+ fotos with a single battery (without flash) :)
Got a Nikon D70, absolutely astonishing pictures, even though they say it's not the camera, but the person behind it...
Man oh man did the camera makers ever see you suckers coming.
Lemme tell you a little something about how cameras actually work. The technology for digital cameras hasn't changed since 1994 when they were initially invented. Every year they release new versions of the same old unchanged technology except they add little bits of window dressing on it to make you THINK you're actually buying a new camera. Here's a good indicator of how to tell you're being ripped off. The most expensive cameras are the bulkiest. This is because the camera makers know that stupid people think that bigger means better. EVEN THOUGH humans can create things like flash drives the size of sticks of gum that hold 4 gigs worth of information, a $2000 camera is roughly the size of your head. Tell me how that even works. Also unbeknownst to most people, digital cameras operate on the same principles as cheese. That is to say there's no solid government regulation requiring the information they state on the package to be accurate. So when you buy a 6 megapixel camera you're actually buying a 1 megapixel camera, even though the box states it's a genuine 6 megapixel camera.
This new Digital hoopla shutter speed nonsense is just a brand new way of taking your money. Just reading the article you can tell the fella writing it has no idea what he's talking about. Things like 'less noise' really means 'more blurry' and customizable shutter speed means 'even more blurry'. And when he lists off the types of people who shouldn't buy the camera he's just being a jerk like all photographers are.
So if you want my advice I'd reccomend you stay away from digital cameras all together and take up drawing. Pencils are cheap and you can add whatever you want to the picture.
1) because it's a SLR, you can't preview the picture you're goint to take. This makes more difficult to color-balance the image on the spot and typically means that you have to take several shots to get the one that looks OK. I know, there are some SLRs that have a secondary preview display, but since it's using a separate sensor, it's not really useful.
2) if you keep swapping the lenses, dust tends to accumulate on the sensor. Things that would not affect a film-based SLR become very annoying with a DSLR. If you expect swapping lenses, get the ones that have self-cleaning sensors (usually using ultrasound shaking).
Apart from these two shortcomings, SLR are much more versatile and create substatially better quality images (mostly due to the better optics).
I have looked at the other models, and right now, I don't see any that have told me "upgrade to me!" other than the "holy crap, 4k!" Nikon D2Xs.
Please, check out http://www.dpreview.com/ before you purchase a camera. No, seriously. When I was a salesdroid, I recommended -everyone- check that site at least once before spending $money on camera.
I saw the D80, and I looked at "What does it offer?" well, okay, its 10mp vs 6mp. But thats not enough to make me buy it. The D80 uses SD cards vs the CF/MD cards of the D70. No benefit there. I have $500 in microdrives. The extra resolution is nice, but not -by it self- enough. A 4x6 image only needs a "3mp" area to be displayed at "80% of humans will never discern it from film"
As a former salesman, you need to ask "What is my end result?" if the answer is "To send pics to grandma" Then -ANY- digital camera will do it. DSLR's bring forth the power of film cameras. If you don't need that power, you don't need a DSLR.
I have a half dozen lenses for my camera. But I'm a semi-pro photographer. A situation that inspires me to get a $400 lens, you might not feel the same on.
Go, Decide for yourself. I can lay out ten thousand reasons why I love my rig and gear. The will -NOT- apply to you. Such is art.
Much of your analysis is predicated on the existence of girlfriends, sometimes with hot friends. I'm afraid we'll have to take that bit of erroneous input into account as we mod your comment. Now, if you'd care to re-post your comment, substituting "mom" for "girlfriend," we'll all have a better baseline with which to work.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The simple solution, as you say, is to lock the shutter up and then capture from the sensor just as a compact does (using a subset of pixels for bandwidth reasons).
There's another interesting technique that's been discussed - using a translucent mirror/prism that's locked in position with a separate shutter behind it. By doing so, x% of the light can be sent up to the eye piece while the other y% can be sent to the sensor.
If you then pull this out of the way and use the old method for stills, you still get the light sensitivity of a traditional DSLR design but gain the ability to do through the lens monitoring of video as well.
No idea if anyone's put this in to use yet or not. I remember reading about it a couple of years ago on various photography forums.
Many concerts will let you take pictures but only if you don't have 'pro' gear. A DSLR is usually considered 'pro' and often isn't allowed unless you have a photo pass. Sometimes they will allow real film SLRs as non-pro. The funny thing is, many of the fixed lens cameras have extensive video capabilities that are lacking on most DSLRs.
Arguing probably won't work but bribes might.
I probably won't buy one of these things until the attached cell phone works better. I mean, yeah, the pictures totally rock, but I can't exactly call anyone with them.
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
Instead of a DSLR, you can make a pinhole camera out of a toilet paper tube and make even more interesting pictures! Or you can make it out of a shoebox or whatever else you have on hand. The images are often amazing, too.
You can just smooth the image to reduce noise. This effectively reduces the resolution, but considering that cameras are 3+ megapixels nowadays you'll still have a very nice picture. Not professional quality, but you're looking at the picture, not selling it.
SLRs in general are much, much more versatile for tacking pictures than point and shoot. The bit about creative control is definitely true. I loved the N8008 but the film and development cost started to add up. I tend to play around with the various camera settings as a way to learn so I tend to take a lot of pictures of the same scene, etc. The DSLR allows me to do that.
I do disagree with the author on a minor point. Not all DSLRs are built to the same quality. Even within the Nikon family the D80/70/50 and even D100 are somewhat weak when compared to their professional DSLR and even traditional SLRs. Those models lack a metal framework. I suppose for most people that's not an issue but I expect my SLRs, digital or otherwise, to last and really go with me where ever I go. The N8008 did just that. I've used it on my roadtrips, taking pictures at the water falls (pretty water resistant camera). I don't have to baby it and I think I'll get the same from the D200. For the same reason, high quality DSLRs are heavy! The author already mentioned that but let me just point out that I take my point-and-shoot with me on my trips for times when I don't expect to take good pictures or when constantly holding the camera is not an option.
The rule of thumb in regards to Nikon vs Canon, for me at least, is Nikon cameras are more rugged with a strong framework inside and weatherproofing seals. They also tend to be faster with the shutters but Canon, from what I've read, tends to take higher quality pictures. For me, since I run around quite a bit, the choice was obviously Nikon (plus I already had an investment in their lenses that still work with the DSLRs).
EvilCON - Made Famous by
The fun of Digital technology is surely the miniaturization and the convenience. To me DSLRs provide neither. I think the less imposing something is, the more you will use it. I have a Camcorder, but I hardly ever use it. It's really not the sort of thing you want to carry around and whip out. You just look a jerk with a Camcorder in your hands. However, since I got my little Sony Cybershot (which also takes great 640x480 Videos), I've been videoing a lot of stuff.
i just scrolled through the entire main page, and every single article except this one has "itsatrap" as a tag. maybe it's just that it's election day, but honestly people, are bands liking Guitar hero or Network Computing's reader survey really traps?
it's a funny tag, and i like it, but i fear it may be getting overused
(go ahead and mod it OT, just thought i should say something)
Score:2, Offtopic
Idiots.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I just bought a new Canon XTi like one HOUR before this article got published here. So now I'm afraid to go read it and find out what I screwed up!
:-)
Drat you slashdot!!!
This is what the GIMP is for.
Flame on!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
As someone who owns both a Digital SLR and a point and shoot, I can say that I wouldn't trade either for what I use them for.
I dabble in photography and almost any photos taken with my digital (Canon 300D KISS) turns out good. In fact I gave the camera to my 13 year old cousin to take some photos (on one of the cameras predefined settings) and most of those photos turned out really well.
At the same time, any time I am going out and want some action shots of my friends crazy antics I would choose my little Nikon over my SLR any time. It is small fast to turn on/off, has a decent zoom, flash, and most importantly, it takes photos without having to mess around with any settings.
You can't compare DSLR's and Point-and-click cameras. They are totally different tools, and should be used in totally different situations.
This is just plain wrong. All the Nikon kit lenses (18-55, 18-70, 18-135, and 18-200 VR) are capable of producing incredible results if used correctly, especially if stopped down a bit. You'd have to view images at 100% or make a 20"x30" print to notice any difference in quality between these lenses and the very best primes, and even then the differences would be minor and near the edges of the frame. What these cheap lenses lack is a constant fast aperture, which makes it easier to handhold shots in low light conditions or shoot sports at longer focal lengths. They also can't minimize depth of field as much as a 1.8 or 1.4 prime (which limits some creative possibilities; just pick up a $100 50mm 1.8 ), and maybe the bokeh isn't as pleasing.
Photography equipment has gotten good enough these days that 99 times out of 100 it's the photographer and not the camera or lens. I know plenty of people of with $5000 invested in the very best lenses that consistently take horrible photographers. I also know plenty of good photographers who consistently take incredible photographers with $200 point and shoots or DSLRs with kit lenses.
Quite a few of the point-and-shoot digital cameras now have respectable movie modes, DSLRs do not have them (in fact basically not have them).
I must say this recomendation smacks of one-upmanship, sure we could all go and buy porsches to do the grocery shopping, but should we?
Horses for courses boys, DSLRs have their advantages, and their limitations.
Ever tried to carry one in a pocket?
Sigh.
It has built in shake reduction and is compatible with every Pentax and 3rd party K-mount lens ever made over the last 30 odd years.
The best part is every one of those lenses will now have the benefits of inbuilt shake reduction in the camera so you don't have to buy expensive Canon IS or Nikon VR lenses. This gives you an automatic 2-3 stop advantage when shooting in low light. The benefits of this cannot be overemphasized.
Plus it's a kickass camera overall.
The Canon XTi costs 345 for the body. Not 1000 dollars. It has everything you mentioned.
Seriously. Point and shoot cameras' biggest weakness in my experience is the inability to zoom in. I picked up a Canon S2 IS, and with 12X zoom and image stabilization, I've been taking shots I never dreamed were possible. I can go to the races and get reasonable shots of the cars on the track, and I can get fantastic pictures of closer objects without having to resort to huge resolution and a later crop with photoshop. Try a *good* point and shoot camera before deciding you need the hassle and expense of a DSLR.
This was on Digg the other day...
Your post seems emotionally charged. Why? I suggest using the scientific method before spouting off "facts". Try making some prints from a small sensor digital camera and then make some prints from a large sensor digital camera, or at least compare prints that others have made with their cameras. This is what I have done and for me, my higher end Panasonic (FZ20) had way too much noise (the Panasonic was a experiment to see if I would like digital). Yes, I know most photo processors work with the lossy JPG format. I went and got myself a Canon 5D. The improvement is staggering and it is worth it for me. I realize that the cost and size of many digital SLRs are not for everyone, but the noise levels are clearly much different, both to me and others I know who have compared.
1. Fish eye lens
2. Extremely Low light situations
3. Bizarre developments - there are many different types of emulsions
4. Medum and Large format film
5. Legacy equipment
6. I can't afford it
My friend who has a DSLR (Canon D30) complains that dust gets on the sensor every time he changes the lens. He cannot use one lens for everything, so it's a real issue. I cannot see the difference between his picture and the pictures I'm taking with my good old 3.2 megapixel Olympus. Maybe it's just me.
Then stick with a point 'n shoot.
If you know what your doing, then you already know there's no substitute for a DSLR.
...and not for newcomers. You can't fail with this though
Sig: I stole this sig.
One thing that can help is to shoot in RAW mode. With the Canon DSLRs, RAW will capture 36-bit color rather than 24-bit. The disadvantage is that you then need to postprocess the images to get decent results - but you can bring out details that would be lost in the shadows if you were shooting in JPEG mode.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
There are now, however some pretty nice intermediate cases... I've had a chance to play with an Nikon CoolPix-950. It gives reasonable control (not as nice as the D70S, but far better than nothing). It's good enough for a lot of situations.
A D70 on the other hand allows me to add an external flash, and zoom lenses far beyond what the CoolPix is capable of. It does image buffering which allows me to shoot in bursts, and I have one image that got blown up to 36x48", and it still looked nice from a less than a foot away. That's about as big as I've done with any of my film images.
There are still that 3% of pictures that the D70 can do that the CoopPix can't but that's far better than the 10-20% problems that I'd have with a normal PAS.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
"In most instances, no one will notice the difference."
Depends on what you mean by most instances. In most instances of DSLR users, the difference will always be apparent. DSLR owners aren't tied to 4x6 prints they get at the supermarket. Furthermore, len performance is a huge advantage for DSLRs that has nothing directly to do with imager size.
"Noise shmoize. No one will notice."
Bullshit. You obviously have no experience in the matter. Go read a camera review at a legitamate site like dpreview.
Hey, while you are posting crap hobby articles, how 'bout one for those of us who fly RC airplanes. You could even tag it itsatrap while you are at it.
What's the line resolution on the average Fujistu photo processor that prints digital to photo paper?
300dpi.
What file formats do they print from again?
TIFF, amoung others.
10x14 @ 300dpi = 12Mp
Actually, WTF was your point? And as for noise, yes most people will notice.
I have a DSLR. I love it. But you know what? I bought a new point-n-shoot camera as well, and I use it most of the time. I use the DSLR when I am going somewhere specifically to take pictures, or I know I'm going to need a high degree of flexibility, or rapid-fire shooting, or something like that.
I used to own point-n-shoots that were way too simple and I couldn't stand them. I have a Canon A series now and it has manual, shutter/aperture priority, and a range of features. Yes, I use them. I bought previous cameras when I couldn't get any better, then eventually sold them when models with those features came along.
Bottom line, if I could get an SLR that I could drop into my pocket, I'd use it all the time. But I feel that it's important for someone who loves photography to have a camera with them at ALL TIMES. You can't take pictures without a camera, and you never know when an opportunity will happen.
If you read the photography forums, you'll find that even the most serious, Nikon F-body toting, $10K lens buying pro almost always has a point-n-shoot in his pocket and car. I think if you're going to have one camera, it probably should be one of the more powerful but compact point-n-shoots (mine is an A710). Because while it can't really match the flexibility or quality of output of an SLR, it does have one advantage that the SLR will never be able to match; you'll be able to have it with you when the great photo ops occur.
Don't get me wrong, I was a huge photography nut back in high school - had an old-school film SLR that I loved to death. But each have their own place eh? If I'm out with friends, having some fun, I don't take along a 3-lb clunker will generate gorgeous photos but be a bitch in every other way. I take the little 5MP thing that slips into my pocket. If I go to Disneyworld I'll take the little guy just 'cos it's a pretty shite idea to lug around something that large on a roller coaster, etc etc.
Everyone interested in real photography should have an SLR, I agree, but for the average Joe that just wants some fond memories, anything will do, even a halfway decent cell phone camera.
Others have said that DSLRs and traditional point-and-shoot digital cameras have advantages that make each better to use in certain situations. I think that some kind of hybrid camera, combining the advantages of each, is on the way. For now though, just get one of each and be done with it (or work on making the next big hybrid thingy).
I should first point out I am a professional photographer with two $3000 digital SLR's. I use a little 4mpx view point & shoot (P&S) for when Im out and about, as it is capable of grabbing a shot really quickly without any setting up.
;o)
1. DSLR's are considerably more expensive than P&S
2. The functions on a DSLR are way beyond the requirements of an average camera user
3. The Megapixel size is generally way above the average requirement and fill up a hard drive far quicker
4. An average DSLR cannot be slipped into ones pocket on holiday
5. The average Joe Blow user wouldnt know depth of field from a corn field. Way too much info.
6. Most DSLRs, even in program mode are generally far more selective than a P&S. One has to have a reasonable level of understanding to take a half decent snap.
7. Insurance and repair costs are proportionate to the price of the camera
8. Personally having had two DSLRs stolen, they are prime targets for theives
9. You could actually be mistaken for a professional. (Trust me, if people think you are press, they want money)
10. Idiots with big cameras put people like me out of work
Stick with your box brownies and leave the serious stuff to the people that know what they are doing. That said, if you are serious about taking photographs, and not snaps of granny at Christmas, then get a basic DSLR and go from there. (Tip: Pick optic companies not electronics companies, ie: get Nikon, Canon, Olympus, not Sony, Casio, Samsung)
"I like to skate on the other side of the ice"
dSLRs have MANY advantages as the article points out. But it glosses over the cost issue. Getting a dSLR with the same reach as a long-zoom "prosumer" camera can cost quite a bit.
Take for example the Nikon Coolpix 8800, or the Panasonic FZ30. They both have good glass: the 8800 has a zoom range of, in 35mm equivalence, 35-350mm. The Panasonic is 35-420mm. Both have optical image stabilization built in, and both can do macro photography too. You also get dSLR style complete manual control if you want it. (Lots of non-dSLRs have good controls, I think the article flops out a red herring there. You just have to do your homework.)
The 8800 isn't made anymore, but it was about $800-900 new, about as much as the original Nikon d70 with kit lens I think. The Panasonic must be on the way out, as it is now about $400. (It is speculated that these types of cameras are a lot less profitable than dSLRs and so are getting erased from the lineups. I dunno.)
So why would I have bought an 8800 instead of a d70? Easy. The cost of a Nikon LENS that can hit 300mm of zoom seems to be about $500--and it still won't let you do macro. When you buy that affordable dSLR kit camera, you aren't buying a complete solution... you are buying a starting point unless your only interests fall in that ~28-105mm range the kit lens covers.
I must grant that the dSLR is superior in many ways, particularly quality of the sensor. A bigger sensor is less prone to noise at high ISO, so your DSLR can shoot cleaner at 1600 than my 8800 can at 200. That is a big deal! But to take full advantage of that, you need to carry around a bag of lenses. (The article didn't mention battery life, another big win for DSLRs by the way.)
I'm not slamming dSLRs. No flames, please. I'm just saying that there is an argument for buying a camera that can do a good job on a little bit of everything, even if it isn't the BEST at any of it. Like any other complex gadget, do your homework--there are a lot of really good cameras available these days. And this is a complicated hobby so you won't get everything you need to know from one top-10 list article (or snarky forum post). Figure out what you want to shoot and the choice of camera will become more clear.
ok, here come the haters, I know it...
My Olympus 5060 Wide Zoom "point and shoot" takes FAR better pictures than all the Canon DSLT's that cost twice as much (my local camera shop let me take every camera I was considering out for a day to compare them). It also has fully manual controls, a hot shoe, a variety of lenses (0.7, 1.7, and 3.0) and the auto-focus is fast and accurate. In addition, thanks to the flip-out LCD, I can take shots that would otherwise be much more difficult (stuff like low-to-ground shots, or over-the-crowd shots). SLR's are simply far less agile than a PNS camera when it comes to taking pictures in the field.
Here's a gallery of shots taken on a 5060 Wide Zoom.
This article is so old school. Unless you are going to buy very good set of lenses, a DSLR doesn't have many advantages over a good point and shoot. Photo.net has jokes about people who buy SLR with a basic zoom lens. And with the point and shoot digital LCD to review pictures immediately, looking thru the lens doesn't matter as much. I can see what the picture as I take the picture and can review the picture afterwards. And a camera isn't any good if you don't have it.
I have taken over 1500 pictures with various Canon A Series Cameras with Auto, P, Av, Tv and M modes.
Canon A620 vs Canon DSLR
1. DSLR have fall range of important modes, Aperture, Shutter and Full Manual
2. P&S can have fall range of important modes, Aperture, Shutter and Full Manual
3. DSLR can look the lens
4. P&S and DSLR has an LCD viewfinder to look at live and to review.
5. P&S can be carried in a small bag.
6. Some P&S are weatherproof
7. DSLR can take expensive high quality lenses
8. Some P&S can take some decent video. Not as good as a camcorder but better than nothing.
9. The Canon A620 is anywhere to 30% to 35% the price of a Canon DSLR.
Which would you rather, drop, take to the beach, camping, etc.
WhatMeWorry!
I like taking pictures. P&S and SLR. Even like it better when digital. I like my DP&S and I'd love to have a DSLR. The one thing that prevented me from buying one is the 'field of view crop' aka 'focal length magnifier/multiplier'.
Top of the range cameras have a full size chip, the Canon D5 prosumer DSLR has one. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos5d/
Any thoughts on that?
"I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
These seem like a pretty good middle-road between DSLRs and basic point & shoot cameras. We recently picked up a Canon S3 IS (seemed to be about half the price of a decent DSLR+lens here in Canada, and we found a good deal).
It does allow control of shutter speed, aperture size, white balance, flash synchronization, focus, etc. It's got an LCD viewfinder, good build quality, image stabilization, fast photo capture and startup times, and one is able to buy lens adapters and other accessories for it. It meets almost all of the points raised in the article. The only big downside I can find is that the sensor isn't quite as good as a decent DSLR's. It's fine for most uses, but at higher ISO speeds the noise is far worse. Accessory availability is also reduced, but for most entry-level/casual folks this likely doesn't matter.
14 - Dust on the sensor. Camera makers are finally getting this, but to date their designs have just been making it more difficult to clean it off. You get a few dust spots, you don't think people will notice it, but they do after seeing three shots in a row. You'll notice it on every shot.
This has happened to me, After exhausting my own options (I used a blower, etc.) I asked Canon if they could clean the sensor; they told me to send it to them, and they'd "let me know" how much it would cost to fix (the guy on the phone said it could be as much as $100. )
15 - Hot Pixels. The longer you own your camera, the more pixels will go bad. Like dust spots, they're not that noticeable at first, but as they accumulate, your pictures will begin to irritate you. My old nikon used to be a lot of fun for night shots, but after a while became less useable.
Granted, they're REALLY nice, and a lot of fun when you first get them. But I do wish that they were more sturdy, easier to clean, and lasted longer than the warranty.
First, if you need an article to tell you why you should buy a SLR camera, you don't need a SLR camera. The article makes a lot of bogus assertions, too - like saying that an expensive camera with a precision lense and the necessary precisely calibrated optical moving parts to produce the SLR effect is more rugged than a simple, cheap digital camera with no moving parts and a tiny lense.
If someone takes a picture with a $10 camera and it's bad, pictures taken with a $1,000 camera are still going to be bad. I had a photography teacher who used to say that, once you can take a picture and explain specifically how you could have made it better using a SLR camera, thats when you're ready to start shooting with one.
I disagree that most people should buy digital SLRs. I have a Nikon D70, two lenses for it, a flash, and a backup to carry it all in. Plus the tripod. All this (plus filters and the like) cost me about $2000. Is it worth it to me? Yes. Do most people need this? Definitely not.
The big benefit of DSLRs is that they let you get pictures that you can't get with normal cameras (whether it be because of better high ISO, lens, or other reasons). On my trip to Costa Rica over the summer, I was able to get amazing rainforest pictures only because of the long lens I have (450 mm equivalent) and the powerful flash I have. Could I have done this with a small digicam? Absolutely not. My girlfriend definitely couldn't with her point and shoot camera. But we're talking about dark rainforests with small animals that I could barely catch with my camera. Are most people going to need to do this? Do they want to lug around 10 pounds of camera equipment just to get that extra quality?
Most people just want to shoot pictures of their kids at the beach or inside. They don't care that their pictures come out imperfectly and they don't care that the flash is always used. Professional quality photographs are what you get in a studio, not at home. I really doubt anyone (including me) really enjoys trying to get perfect lighting in every situation.
I actually just ran into this exact question when choosing a camera for my dad. He was thinking that he would get a DSLR at some point soon, but instead my sister and I got him a Canon SD700 as a present. The SD700 has IS (lets you use longer exposure times since it optically stabilizes the image) that on a D80 would cost at least $800 for a lens. Plus his camera has a bright screen, is fast, and has a great zoom range. And best of all, the camera fits in his pocket and weighs nothing. He loves it.
One thing I've realized (and that I've read in a lot of places) is that the most important thing about photography - more important than lighting or equipment or composition - is having your camera there. Without a camera, you can't photograph. Most people (including me) don't want to haul around an SLR all the time. I wish I had the energy to do that, but I don't. And I know I miss photo opportunities because of it, but for me bringing my camera everywhere I go is a pain in the neck. Digicams are wonderful for this reason - they're small, reasonable good, and easy to use. And unless you need the extra capabilities of a DSLR (which most people don't), there's no reason to get one.
Firstly I bought a DSLR.
Several months later I became unhappy with the lens.
One month later I bought a heavy lens.
I change lenses a lot. And I've got nice pictures.
Several months later I found dust on the sensor.
I went to a clean room, used dry nitrogen to clean the sensor. :-p
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Before I went digital, I shot a lot of Kodachrome and loved it. However, I was recently on a steam train excursion in Iowa, and a discussion of photography naturally ensued. One of my fellow passengers said that he threw his last unexposed rolls of Kodachrome in the trash, because it was a cheaper and more efficient way to dispose of it than to shoot it, send it out for processing, and never see it again.
I have few regrets about going to digital - my first-generation DRebel takes lovely pics, offers all sorts of flexibility (no more "oops! wrong film for the scene!"), allows me to judge exposures with a histogram, and doesn't burn up $$$ on film (which means I can burn up $$$ on lenses and accessories instead).
However, there are still times when I miss shooting Kodachrome 64 with a Minolta SRT-202...
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
So far everyone has been pointing out differences between point 'n shoot and dslr cameras, but what about super zooms like Canon S3 IS? Those are not pure DSLR nor point 'n shoot cameras. I myself have been torn between Canon S3 IS and Canon 400D (and before that, 350D) for a while now, and I know that if I buy DSLR, my spending of money on that camera won't stop with the first lens. With Canon S3 IS I MIGHT be happy with it and I would know how much I would be spending in total.
I think that the 10-reasons-list is not taking into account this comparison at all.
-Is the meaning of life vanity, or is vanity the meaning of life?
That shit is hilarious. Would that I had mod points...
Because I don't want to shoot movies, I want to shoot video clips. I can take short clips of my daughter so my parents can see their grandkid growing up. SHORT is the operative word. I can take a minute video of all the various cute stuff my daughter does. It isn't boring-ass hours of nothing that people tend to shoot with their video cameras. I don't have to worry about editing, all I really have to do is re-encode it and possibly adjust the light level. I can take 1 small device on trips that can take great pictures and video clips.
In reality, it is all about the right tool for the job. There are uses for dedicated video cameras. There are times when my digital camera is the perfect tool, and times I wish I had a DSLR. (shutter lag sucks, and burst shooting would be nice) I look at it more like a cordless drill - I can use it as a drill or a power screwdriver. Most of the time that is all I will need, although it doesn't work best for all situations.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I'd like the option to disable them all together. It is of no benefit to see "yes", "no", "maybe", "fud", "notfud", "itsatrap", and now "itsnotatrap" on every single story. The only tag that has been remotely useful is "slashdotted", which only serves to save one click.
/. tags have done is add another layer of information to try to sort through, and ultimately simply ignore. They are an embarrassment and should be completely reformed or trashed.
The irony is that tagging is supposed to make it easier to sort through information, and all the
Can any of these run Linux?
My 4x5" field camera delivers megapixels in the hundreds. A 2400dpi scan of 20" inches of area is equivalent to 115 megapixels. Fuji Velvia film has at least 4000dpi of usable resolution. Large-format optics easily deliver 4000+ dpi of sharpness.
In order to create a quality11x14" print at 300dpi, you need 13+ megapixels (11*300*14*300). Your Nikon D80 and Canon 20D just doesn't cut it. Sure, you can print at 200dpi or less, but the results will not be as sharp especially for fine-detailed landscape photos.
For small prints, digital is great and beats 35mm film in most cases.
He's totally right.
Saying everybody needs a DSLR because the results are better is short sighted at best. Yes, the results can be better if used properly. But the costs are high - I'm sorry, but 1000$ won't get you anywhere (perhaps a cheap consumer DSLR and couple so-so kit lenses, nothing more). I have several thousands $ worth of glass, and I still need to spend more: I really need a good UltraWide because of the crop factor (and that's already half of your 1000$ budget!) To have a good DSLR that'll last you a while you'll need to spend a good amount
A Good DSLR (high speed/fps and good buffer, good x-sync speed, decent build quality, decent ISO range/noise, with decent set of features, options like battery packs, etc) is not cheap, but that's just the very beginning! Still not cheap.
You also need memory cards which can cost hundreds even though they've come down in price a LOT lately (and preferably some way to empty them like an "image tank" or laptop for trips)
And spare li-ion battery packs (can be pricey) or lots of nimh batteries (and cases for 'em) and chargers
And the "good" flash for your camera system (typically around 500$)
A good sturdy and versatile tripod and suitable head, easily 250$ (hundreds more if you want a pano head too!)
And some camera bag (can get more expensive than one thinks) like say a mini-trekker or such, around 100$
Accessories like cable release/IR remote, microfiber cloths/cleaning pen, sensor swaps + eclipse, quick-release/mounting plates, etc - it adds up pretty quickly!
A "walkaround" lens, a decent telephoto (not the cheapo 70-300mm Tamron "coke bottles") and a superwide to start with. Eventually a macro lens (and all kinds of macro gear like tubes/bellows, ring flashes, reversing rings, etc), primes, nice lenses with vibration reduction or such. This will easily cost several thousands by itself.
Filters for all your lenses! UV filters to protect 'em. A GOOD circular polarizer (hoya or whatever, NOT no-name crap!), ND grads, etc. Eventually you may want a IR filter (fun stuff), something like some of the fun/best Cokin P filters (e.g. blue/yellow polarizer) or such. You can spend hundreds on this again. And you want to buy 'em big, and buy stepping rings - NOT buy a set for each size of lens! Nice large (77mm+) filters are pretty expensive.
Honestly, you can't possibly have a decent DSLR kit anywhere near 1000$ (Hell, I've spend 3x that on a DSLR body alone)
And even when you have one, you STILL need/want a P&S digicam too. It's not like you'll carry the DSLR everywhere with you. And because you don't, you'll miss countless nice things. I've seen hundreds of neat or plain amazing things I had not expected to come across before, and the P&S came in handy countless times like that (when taking walks, at the parks with the kids when visiting family, that super nice bike I've seen at the mall the other day, at a camp fire with my dad this summer, etc - even just for photographing things I don't want to foget about/as a reminder!) The DSLR would have captured that in much better quality, but it's not practical to carry everywhere. It's no substitute for a small P&s. No need to be fancy. I got a very nice DSLR kit, but my P&S is a puny Nikon Coolpix L2. Cheap, small, good on batteries, half-decent zoom, etc. No need for high-quality or high-megapixel for simple snapshots (getting the picture is more important than the level of noise or level of detail). Oh, it does video too @ 640x480 (kinda fun), which my DSLR doesn't. And it has lots of "helper modes" that some may appreciate a lot.
Oh, and a DSLR hardly makes better pictures by itself. I found that pretty frustrating the day I bought my first SLR (non-digital). Even after spending thousands, the photos can actually be WORSE than using a P&S! They only become better once you master the tool (knowing about ISO speeds, f/stops, how long a shutter time you can handhold, Depth of Field, hyperfocal distance, etc). Most people
no more google adwords or "intelliTXT" ad based links/articles. If I see anymore, the author is going on a list and getting pera-modded down. The folks who mod up are going to get modded down as well. If I get meta-mderated, so be it; I'm just sick of seeing the web as so ugly and commercialized.
I have had three point and shoot digitals (one died, one replaced by Best Buy). My Nikon 3200 takes great pics and is quite portable, but the battery compartment won't remain closed (broken plastic). The point and shoots work well, but the shutter lag has caused many missed pics over the years.
We just got a Canon Digital Rebel II. Nice camera with same sensor as the more expensive D series, but plastic body. However, for the price and features it is ideal (8MP, not 10, plastic body, very light for an SLR). The kit lens is ok, but you really need a better lens (it is way too slow and is quite soft). Now to talk the wife into letting me get a few.
I still use the Nikon point and shoot for quick trips, camping, and places where I don't want to risk the SLR. The Canon is for more serious work, pics of the kids cheerleading, close ups, etc. It opens up the creative side and replaces my old Canon AE1 and several older SLRs that I use for creative or low-light work.
Questions to ask:
1) Do need portability -> point and shoot (or even camera phone)
2) Do you need to take sports or action shots -> SLR
3) Do you travel and plan on taking creative shots (buildings, mountains, people) -> SLR
4) Low light -> SLR
5) Will your budget support it NO-> point and shoot
For enthusiasts? I think you missed the point entirely.
It's not out yet but for those that are interested in a DSLR for the higher quality sensor, the upcoming Sigma DP1 (due early next year) will be pretty handy. It uses the same sensor as the new Sigma SD-14, equivilent to a 10MP camera. And, it will also do video at 640x480 30FPS.
It has a fixed 16mm f4 lens, but since it has a large amount of resolution on tap digital zoom is practical to use to some extent.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nowadays, I carry a digital point-n-shoot almost everywhere, and for most shots where I would have ordered 4x5 snapshots back in the day, it works great. But, even with a 1GB CF card, the hassle that keeps biting me is keeping a charge in the gd batteries. So, when I vacation somewhere that I know I'll want to take the time to set up a shot, or if there's the least question whether I'll be able to buy fresh lithium or recharge, I haul my high school era Minolta SRT-201, or the positively ancient hand-me-down Rolleiflex. Granted, 120 film for the Rollei is getting to be mail-order-only, but the only thing the Minolta needs a battery for is the meter, which lasts a couple of years if I'm burning holes through the lens. I can still get 35mm film in any one donkey/camel hole-in-the-wall "store", next to the Lomitil and condoms.
Call me an old fart, but while I'm sure I'll eventually spring for a dSLR (or a 6x6 digital back when they ain't >US$12K), I'm not looking forward to hauling yet another set of batteries and rechargers with me. It takes up space in my bags where the Powerbook is supposed to go.
Luke, help me take this mask off
1) Creative Control - Many (semi)compact cameras offer most of the controls available in a DSLR. These include manual focus, shutter speed, aperture, and white balance. A DSLR isn't the only camera that offers these settings, though it may offer some greater degree of control in some areas.
2) Superior Sensors - No question about it, though the specific reasons why this is important merit their own separate mention. The author should have also emphasized the difference between sensor size and resolution/megapixel count.
3) Less Noise - One of the main benefits of the larger/better sensor, but this is mainly noticeable when shooting at higher ISO settings and with longer exposures in lower light conditions. Any camera can take a pretty picture in broad daylight. Try taking a picture indoors or a long exposure at night and DSLRs offer exponentially superior performance than any non-DSLR.
3a) On that note, it should be pointed out that the larger sensor allows use of extremely high ISO settings (1600, 3200) while delivering usable noise levels. This is one reason why these are the only cameras suitable for low light, non-flash photography without a tripod and particularly indoor sports photography.
3b) One of the most important benefits of these sensors which the author ignored entirely is the superior speed and accuracy of the autofocus. Autofocus on a DSLR is nearly instantaneous in a far wider range of shooting conditions, especially in light conditions far below the point where compact cameras fail. Once again, this is absolutely essential for low light candid shots and sports photography.
4) Accessories - Main advantage here are the lenses, ESPECIALLY wide angle, which is virtually nonexistent in compact cameras - again due to technical limitations when using small sensors.
5) Shutter lag - Mainly due to item 3b above (autofocus performance) but in general DSLRs have much faster shooting rates, startup times, and ability to quickly adjust things like white balance.
7) Higher build quality - I don't think so. This depends entirely on what models you're comparing. The build quality on a high end Canon or Sony compact digital camera is far superior to that of a low end DSLR. Of course, if you're going to spend $7000 on a shock, dust, and moisture
resistant professional DSLR body there's simply nothing comparable on the lower price range - either compact or DSLR.
9) Ergonomics - True, but there are some situations when a smaller camera, with a rotating LCD monitor, that can be held and operated single-handedly, trumps the bulk and awkwardness of a large and heavy DSLR. Also, DSLRs are noisy when shooting. In general, these differences make a DSLR a liability especially when doing candid photography.
10) Price - DSLRs are certainly affordable now, but don't forget that cheap kit lenses will deliver subpar image quality. Top quality glass will easily break the budget, in many cases rivaling or exceeding the cost of the camera body itself.
This all adds up to many many opportunities for dust to land on the sensor. You cannot safely clean the sensor if the dust does not blow off with gentle air, and many people have sent their cameras in for cleaning many times.
I agree DSLRs have many opportunities to gather dust.
However, the latter part of your statement - that you can't clean dist off a sensor safley - is not at all true. A much better way is actually to use a nylon brush on the sensor, this is easy enough to do that pretty much anyone can handle it easily.
Next on the list comes liquids, but those are much harder to manage and I would not recommend it.
The Sigma SD-10 (and upcoming SD-14) DSLR does away with this not with a dust removial system, but a dust protector just behind the lens - this works really well. Furthermore you can remove this protector to do IR photography as it also doubles as the IR filter, so it has a practical reason for existing beyond just stoppping dust.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I also have a Pentax K100D and really like it's ability to use about every lens ever made. I wouldn't go back to a digicam. Just being able to adjust the depth of field and manually focus are huge advantages. It's really feel frustrated to use a point and shoot once you've used an SLR. This assumes of course that you are as infatuated with perfection and willing to read up, study and practice to perfection as I assume most readers of slashdot are.
One point I think the article skipped over though is the proprietary (RAW) format of most DSLRs. Unless you plan to take and save JPEGS, in which case you're better off using a digicam, you gotta use RAW. RAW's problem is it's a PITA to process. gphoto, etc for Linux sometimes deal with RAW, but others, like my model of the Pentax aren't even accomodated by Photoshop yet. So, beware you can't just take pictures out of these and upload them to flickr or do the other things you might be used to.
Good quality pictures, the sort of thing you see in the galleries of highly rated photos on www.photo.net, come from RAW photos that are processed in gphoto, GIMP, Photoshop, etc to bring out the best of the shot. It's not a quick process and you should aim more for the few good shots sort of scenario and leave the lot of candid photos to digicams or DSLRs on auto/jpeg mode.
The RAW format isn't the only proprietary trap of DSLRs. I bought a Pentax primarily because of the ease of lens interchange but it also uses standard old SD cards and regular AA batteries. I use rechargeables but the point is I don't have to buy those VERY expensive proprietary batteries or flavor of the month memory formats as you may if you don't watch out.
For those who are bothered by the "digital" look of pictures, or think colors are a little flat from most digital cameras - consider looking into the Sigma SD-14 DSLR, due out sometime around the end of the month.
It uses an entirely different kind of sensor from all other DSLRs, made by Foveon - instead of having a filtered 2D array of colors that pixels are reconstructed from, it stacks sensors atop one another which results in much sharper level of detailed captured at 100%, and with the SD-14 should equal around a 10MP camera worth of detail while having none of the color or other artifacts that can crop up in all other DSLRs.
It also offers a dust protector to prevent dust from entering the camera, that you can also easily remove to take InfraRed photos.
I have the Sigma SD-10 which has also been a fine camera, but the SD-14 is great for a wider audience as they have refined almost every aspect of the camera and improved low-light handling while adding many features people expect in more consumer-oriented cameras.
It's more expensive than some other DSLR's but as I said the sensor is quite unique and produces images with a very different character than other cameras, plus the ability to quite easily expore IR photos is a big plus.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Sigma SD-10 and SD-14 actually have a much better dynamic range and deeper color capture than most other cameras, using the Fovoen CMOS chip for image capture - other CMOS cameras are pretty good as well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Tag this 'duh' because hasn't it always been obvious that an SLR is better than a point and shoot? I would honestly rather have a 35mm SLR than a digital point and shoot.
My advice would be to find what is a comfortable middleground for you. Unless you're a pro or a serious enthusiast, you probably aren't going to use more than 20% of the functions and options on a high end DSLR. That said, a really cheap Point and Shoot is probably not for you either, since we're on /. after all.
So here's what i tell people when they ask me:
1) Name brand counts for a lot. Don't buy Sony, Panasonic, Casio. Buy Kodak, Canon, Olympus. Sure, the former have made some good cameras but you're far more likely to get a great camera from a company whose first business is in cameras rather than consumer electronics.
2) The megapixel count doesn't mean squat. Anything over 4Mp will do you fine for 6x4 prints and unless you want really big prints, it's the lens that matters. For screen work, you're limited to your monitor resolution anyway.
3) It's all about the zoom. I reckon the human eye has about an 8-10x zoom equivalent. Ideally this is what your camera should be. You have to see the shot with the naked eye before you take it, after all.
4) If you want good shots, first and foremost, go for a camera with a proper grip over a credit card sized one. Trust me, it's a damn sight easier to shoot with and far, far more stable.
5) Get an add-on flash or at least the upgrade potential. For about £90 you can get a pretty decent add-on flash that will utterly transform your indoor/studio shots into less of a deer-in-the-headlights look.
6) Digital zoom doesn't mean shit. Far too many people buy into the '2x optical, 6x digital' pitfall and it's a damn shame. No matter how advanced that digital zoom it, optical will always be the only thing that matters.
7) Get a viewfinder. The image you see in that nifty little LCD is probably overexposed and off-colour. A digital viewfinder, while not perfect, is still better.
I have a two year old Kodak DX6490. It's a 4Mp, 10x optical zoom camera with good manual settings and surprisingly acceptable auto modes. It's only now that i'm thinking of upgrading and since Nikon have mostly done away with flip-out LCD's, i'll probably stick with this camera for a while. (If you shoot weird angles, a flip-out LCD makes life so much easier.
Overall that article was fairly accurate, though i don't agree with DSLRs being more rugged. If it weighs 5lbs and you drop it on a rock, it's going to be just as broken as a 2lb camera.
"No, no, no, don't tug on that! You never know what it might be attached to."
I am not a photographer, but I thought SLR was a way for you to see exactly what the film would capture rather than just what you see through a point-and-shoot camera's viewfinder (which depends on your eye's position relative to the camera). But almost all digital cameras come with LCD screens that let you see exactly what the camera will capture. Isn't DSLR the same thing, or am I missing something? It seems like it just signifies a professional camera that is shaped somewhat like most SLR film cameras (i.e., large) and is compatible with the same lens attachments. Does it really have single-lens reflex action and, if so, why? Can someone tell me what I'm missing?
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
I got a D70 when it had just come out (when DSLRs had just come down to a consumer-friendly price range.) This is my second digital camera. The killer advantages for me were
(1) Near zero shutter lag
(2) Much better low-light capability. (You can't always use a flash - sometimes the main point of a photo is the ambient light.)
I also have come to value the ease of some adjustments. The one I use most is dimming the flash (my default camera setting is to have the flash on -0.7 f-stops. This avoids the 'flat' look that full flash gives.) Second is adjusting the exposure - often +0.7 to +1.3 f-stops when I have a dark subject against a bright background. It also has much better battery life than my previous camera.
The biggest disadvantage is size - it is too big to carry all the time, so I may have a good shot but no camera on me. The lack of a swivel LCD screen for composing shots would be the next biggest disadvantage.
Some of the advantages in the article don't look to be truely DSLR specific - ruggedness, adjustment options, lens quality. A non-DSLR could have these if the manufacturers cared to put them there.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Idiots.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Again, I have not researched it, but it seems to me that a sensor that recieves a dose of light and reads it at its leasure would be a simpler beast than one that has to turn its pixels on and off for an exposure, read the data in full light, rinse and repeat.
As any extra circuitry in the sensor must add noise, there would be a loss of quality for this capability.
That said, the ability to toss a nice, quality SLR zoom lens onto a video-capable camera would be nice.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
While I generally agree with the article, it REALLY depends on what non-SLR camera you are comparing to. For example, if I address his 10 points compared to a high-end Sony 828 non-SLR digital camera:
1) Creative Control: I have most of the same settings and control in the 828 as a DSLR: shutter speed, aperature, white balance, flash modes, color balance, histogram, etc.
2) Superior Sensors: The 828's is nice, but it can't compare to most DSLR's... but that doesn't mean newer non-DSLR's will remain behind the sensor technology curve.
3) Less Noise: Not a terrible problem on the 828
4) Accessories Galore: Yep- gotta hand that over to the SLR's. The 828 can use various flashes, memory, filters, but the lens is fixed.
5) No Shutter Lag: I find the "lag" on the 828 to be minimal. The DSLR's are faster at focusing, but from the time it is focused I see no difference in speed from pressing the button fully down and it taking the picture on the 828 vs. the DSLR's I have used.
6) Instant Startup: Again, what is he comparing to? The 828 is ready to shoot in under one second.
7) Higher Build Quality: 828 will stack up against most DSLR's
8) Viewfinder: Personally, I *like* using a live screen to shoot instead of a viewfinder. So I find the 828 superior to a DSLR in that case, but if you do WANT to use the viewfinder, the DSLR is better. This is probably the most important differentiating factor between the two.
9) Ergonomics: 828 is every bit as comfortable to me as a DSLR, plus it can shoot overhead or underfoot while watching the screen, something you cannot do with a DSLR at all.
10) Price: quality DSLR or non-DSLR, price is similar and not a factor anymore.
Interestingly, a company could easily make a quality non-DSLR camera with a larger sensor and interchangable lenses and most of what is left of the differences will just disappear. Then the consumer is left with the only REAL difference: Do you want to be forced to look through a viewfinder or want to primarily look at a screen? They each have advantages and disadvantages.
And features that the 828 has that I have not seen on the several DSLR's I have played with?
1) The 828 has a (visible) laser focus system for dim light that is extremely accurate.
2) The 828 has a sharper and closer macro mode than any DSLR-included lens I have seen.
3) As mentioned above, the 828 body can twist and allow the photographer to take pictures overhead and underfoot while still seeing what he is doing
4) The 828 has night modes (infrared) that are better than what DSLR's can typically emulate (although I don't find that feature to be all that useful- it is still noisy and, of course, black-and-white-only.)
5) The 828 has full-motion video recording at 640x480, none of the DSLR's I have seen support any type of movie recording.
I'm a total amateur, but I've fallen in love with photography thanks to the XT. I've not used a 30D, but I can't imagine that it would present *that* much benefit to a person brand new to photography... I can set everything I need to set on my XT within a second or two. Generally I let it do its own metering and either select aperture or shutter speed, this works very well for me, especially as I'm still learning what combinations yield what results - I'm generally much happier with a shot that's exposed properly so I can see what mistakes I've made, rather than getting something pitch dark or entirely washed out and basically having to throw it away. Still, I can set mode, ISO, speed/aperture very quickly, often without looking. It'd be nice if I had a dial for ISO rather than having to go through the menu but as long as you remember what ISO you're currently on, it's not tough to set it by feel (and you can probably tell by the resulting change in light metering). I'm sure for a pro more speed/flexibility might be desirable, but for hobbyists I would totally agree with the lens comment. I can sell/give away my XT in a few years when I start getting frustrated with the controls (if that ever really happens), and upgrade to the next step up at 20 megapixels or whatever is current.
For Canon, I would strongly recommend the 50mm f/1.8, it's under 100 bucks and will let you take most indoor shots without a flash. It is extremely easy to use and will let you get used to a prime lens. The autofocus is slow and noisy, but it gets the job done. Another great lens I've had experience with is the 28-135 IS - it's got an image stabilizer which isn't quite as useful as I had hoped, but it's a very good range of zoom for typical walkabout photography, it's not too hefty, and the image quality is quite good in my admittedly uncultured opinion! You can get the new XTi, both of these lenses and still walk away paying less than getting a 30D with no lens at all. The XT kit lens isn't horrible either, it lets you get down to 18mm for 100 bucks... I'm not sure if there are that many options that wide without either being fish-eyes or over 700 bucks.
A couple provisos - getting into the DSLR habit is like getting into musical instruments, car tuning, or home theater, or high end PC gaming. You're going to get addicted to it and start spending absurd amounts of money (if you're not careful). "Good" (L) Canon lenses start in the neighborhood of 1000 bucks. I haven't bought into that level yet, because I know it'd be throwing my money away at my current skill level. However, like good musical instruments, the stuff you buy has the potential to last a very long time, and from what I've read the Canon EF lens series has been going strong for quite a while now. But you're still pouring money into what will some day be obsolete technology, or worse, something you're not interested in anymore. Secondly, when you get "serious" about it, you look like a total nerd. I still feel very very awkward carrying a camera bag around - but if you're going to do anything useful with your camera you just about have to. Even without the bag, the camera is very obtrusive in the best of times, with small lens on. If you're reading this far into a comment on Slashdot, you probably don't care, but hey, fair warning. =) In the long run, I will probably buy a point and shoot so I can have something I can stick in my pocket and take places I wouldn't feel comfortable/interested in lugging my real camera around to. Once you start the hobby, you really start thinking about photographing everything interesting you see, in my experience.
Oh, and the other thing that sorta bites about the whole hobby is vendor lock-in. Your camera vendor is your lens vendor is your accessory vendor. There are cheaper knock-off lenses, but in general, the higher quality stuff is single vendor. If you're interested in Canon, or if you're a DSLR initiate like myself, I've found this page to be very, very useful:
-Greg
It doesn't matter what you buy in preference to the Canon 18-55mm kit lens, anything at all will show up that Canon lens as really poor.
... :-(
This isn't a reflection on normal Canon lens quality at all, as almost all of them are very good indeed, and on a par with Nikon's lenses. It's only that one specific Canon kit lens that is utterly attrocious.
Admittedly, it's probably the cheapest lens you can buy for any top-marque DSLR, adding almost nothing to the body price. Well, you certainly get your money's worth
Can't we go back to calling them SLR? Now that digital is, for all intents and purposes, all that is sold(*), there's no reason to stick that obnoxious, annoying "D" on the beginning.
(*) Yes, film-fans, film is *not* dead. But sales of new cameras are so overwhelmingly digital that for any given purchase of a new SLR camera, chances are at least 50 to 1 that it's digital. The "D" is redundant, needless, and silly.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
That's the reason why the 20D has been so particularly favored with wildlife folks - in that game, you can't get enough reach, and the 20D (with the "crop factor") packs more pixels into the "sweet spot" of the image circle than even the 1Ds Mk II. That means that you can get about as much use out of a "measly" $600 00mm f/2.8 as someone with a full-frame camera (or film) could from a $4,000 300mm f/2.8.
Don't get me wrong, I love my SLR. If I had to use a point-and-shoot, I'd just quit taking pictures. But they're not for most folks. The higher potential image quality invariably comes at a greater cost and complexity.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
the person was talking about shutter lag... not shutter speed. in DSLRs, there's practically no lag. prosumer non-point and shoots are also approaching no lag. digital compacts, on the other hand, still have some lag (the time between depressing the shutter and exposing the picture). this is often further compounded by the longer time it takes for compacts to obtain focus. furthermore, not all compact camera users even understand the concept of half pressing the shutter release to obtain focus. all of these amounts to the novice user mashing the button, waiting for the camera to focus, and then waiting again for the shutter to open.
the problem with compacts is indeed light. worse optics and smaller sensor sizes mean that compacts need more light.
Now seriously, I wanted to buy a DSLR camera a while ago. But as a professional wannabe, I ended up purchasing one of those "semi-DSLR" (to give it a name), like the Nikon Coolpix 8800. They have most of the things the professional cameras have, such as shutter speed and aperture control, but still remain quite simple and your don't have to worry about buying very expensive lenses that cost as much (or more) as the camera itself.
For a whole year I used a Point&Shoot (The Canon S410) and only last year did I dare to venture into the realm of the DSLR (I own a 350D). I have pictures from both eras for comparison (Point&Shoot and Mostly DSLR) The point I have to make is this:
1. A great picture does not require an SLR. A great picture is mostly about composition, and very little about the actual quality of the image. If nothing, a P&S will teach you to put composition over lens wizardry, and when you actually graduate to an SLR, you'll be the master of both.
2. A P&S has one great advantage over a DSLR -> Size! I lug my SLR around on lots of occasions, but most of the time it's a planned thing. When I used my P&S, it used to be in my pocket the whole time, and I got a lot more spontaneous and interesting shots. Photography is not just for those trips you make.. it's for the times you see a great shot while walking down the street, in the mall.. in the classroom... everywhere... the P&S will make you start framing shots in your head every time you step out of your house.
3. DSLRs have bigger sensors and generally much better image quality, but the Canon P&S cameras I've used have a great picture quality that's virtually indistinguishable from an SLR unless you zoom in too much. (A 10MP picture is really worthless unless you are actually gonna blow up the image to that size.. most of the time you'll be posting them at 1024px or smaller.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
My wife and I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to fulfill all our photographic needs with just a DSLR or just a point-n-shoot... we needed to have both. Having a Canon Digital Elf that's so small, you can wear around your neck, has allowed us to always have a camera with us, no matter what we're doing. We even sprung for an underwater housing for it, and took it snorkeling. Being able to take little movie clips with it is an unexpected bonus.
When we need the extra control, pixels and quality that a DSLR provides, we bring out the big guns and lug around a full camera bag with our Digital Rebel, lenses, filters and flashes.
I'd really hate to give up either setup, since each has yielded images that the other would never have been able to capture. I'd never one-hand my Rebel while rock climbing, and I'd never be able to lock focus on a fast moving mountain biker and shoot multiple frames/sec with the Elf.
SLR stands for single lens reflex. try looking it up.
it is large for a reason, namely there is a mirror inside that allows the viewfinder to see exactly what the sensor/film will see.
DSLR is a digital SLR camera.
The article seems to be comparing DSLRs with low-end cameras ("no shutter lag" in #5, "most digicams are plastic" in #7, "small digicam" in #9). I'm sorry, but you just can't make a comparison between a DSLR and a $200 Sony toy.
My first digital camera was a 1.3MP Olympus, then a 4MP Olympus which was a really good camera, but it broke, and I lost it around the house after getting it repaired (I only recently found it again), so I got a Canon A95. I. Hated. That. Thing. In addition to the up direction on the D-pad not working, the red-eye flash was WORTHLESS (unlike the multi-flash on the Olympus), and it took forever after pressing the button before it finally decided to take a picture. Then it would take forever to compress to the CF. And the mode wheel was more like a "wheel of fortune" because it was too easy to turn by bumping the camera against things. I ended up with more than one AVI of myself cursing wondering WTF the camera was doing until I realized it was in movie mode.
Then I finally got tired of it and dropped $600 on a Lumix a few months ago. That thing is great. Most importantly, it takes pictures very fast. Sometimes the multi-picture button gets pressed by accident, and I only realize a few pictures later that this thing has been happily taking two or three pictures at a time and instantly writing them to the SD card. It even takes pictures in very low light (IR?), though you need to put the camera on a stable surface, and they come out red (which can be changed to grayscale later in Photoshop.) About the only thing I don't like is that the multi-picture button is too easy to hit by accident, the last picture review can't be set as long as I would like, and it doesn't have a solenoid to automatically pop up the flash.
And the swivel LCD makes "shoot from the hip" much easier. The article author must not wear glasses, because I do, and it's a pain to put my eye up to a tiny little viewfinder. But the big thing to me is that the reason to use an SLR with film is exactly the reason NOT to use an SLR with a digital camera. The viewfinder in a film SLR "sees what the film will see". But the screen on a regular digital camera also "sees what the film will see", since it's taken directly from the same source!
Basically, if you're already using film SLR, or you need the pro level of mechanical control that an SLR body will give you (exposure, lenses, filters, etc.), and especially if you care enough to use the camera on a tripod much of the time, you should get a DSLR. In defense of the article, the first thing it says is that if you're going to leave it on automatic, don't waste your money. I say instead put that $600 or so into a good regular digital camera. And even then, a semi-pro digital camera like the Lumix will give you some level of exposure control if you need it.
But most of what I do is precisely those "shoot from the hip" quick shots for which I can't go futzing around with exposure settings, and shots of people indoors (not in a "studio"), so red-eye is a big issue with me. (yes, I know getting a foot flash could help, but that's extra bulk)
Oh yeah, and you can get a Lumix in black. Black is apparently bling for photographers.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Why Your Camera Does Not Matter
Summary: Stop worrying about whether your camera is the l33tess and start taking photos. For most people, using a DSLR is about as stupid as taking a photo of your dog with a large-format camera.
After reading TFA, consulting with several DSLR-owning friends, I just ordered a 6.3MP Fuji FinePix F30. One of the main selling points: ISO 3200 "at full resolution", and a remarkably low noise even at high ISOs. I considered the Canon SD800 IS, which provides image stabilization, but can't the the low-light tricks that the Fuji F30 can.
Fuji F30 + 1GB xD card = a hair under $300, and there's a $50 rebate, which you can use to buy a lens hood in the springtime when the rebate check arrives.
Anyway, ISO 3200 for under $300 ($250 if you believe in the rebate fairy) seemed like an excellent deal on a pretty good light-catcher.
-Mark
Though, not for everyone, I highly recommend the 5D. I occassionally enlarge photos to submit to shows and here is where the 5D really shines. The 5D with its 12.6 mega-pixels and full frame sensor has been my best digital camera to-date. -- Downsides: $$$, hard-disk space, and sensor cleaning. -- Carey
I went through hundreds of rolls of film on my old Canon AE-1 from the early '80s. I had a couple lenses and got some pretty decent pics from it.
In 1997 I bought a Mavica (640x480, floppy disk) and discovered a few things about me:
- I wasn't afraid of wasting film.
- I wasn't afraid of experimenting.
- I always had a decent zoom along.
- I didn't look like a journalist swooping in to make a big deal out of events.
I now have a Sony H-1. I have rediscovered the issues of control that I missed so much in my previous cameras. I wish they were a little more convenient (manual exposure and focus), but I can and do use them.
What I get that a DSLR doesn't do:
-A single package with a 12x zoom
-compact
-WYSIWYG (which is a plus or minus, depending on your POV)
-cheap! ($250)
-fewer moving parts, hence more reliable in theory. (particularly in my dusty environment)
Over the years I've changed from being a "photographer going along with the group" to "a member of the group who has a camera along". I think it is the social issues that make me appreciate the smaller camera more than anything else. For the past couple years I've taken most of my photos with a 2mp Sony U20 (tiny!) so that I'm not seen as a tourist lugging a big camera. I always had it with me and I got many shots that I never would have got with a bigger camera. Having it with you is the most important thing. Now I have a 2mp camera on my phone which does almost as good.
The only thing that a DSLR will get you over a good P&S is a bit clearer view of your subject -- which really only matters if you are using manual focus. You add complexity, weight, and the hassle of extra lenses for a marginal increase in picture quality.
Good P&S cameras are at the knee of the curve right now. They aren't much more expensive than a cheap P&S, but if you want better, you pay significant amounts for marginal improvements.
Michael
I have been an avid photographer for almost 20 years and my lovely 29 year old Nikon F2AS with prime lenses is my current choice for photography. This will change when a 20MP+ DSLR comes out which I can afford. Putting my F2AS on the shelf saddens me, since I love it. The build quality is really amazing and the lenses are fantastic. I really appreciate the low flaring and chromatic aberration and high contrast and sharpness of decent lenses.
To the point however, my girlfriend wants to replace her old film compact camera with a digital compact, so she asked me (more than a year ago now) to research a good digital compact for her. I have been looking at a lot of review sites and at the sample pictures and I just can't bring myself to recommend one. The chromatic aberration in almost every single digital compact I have looked at, is terrible!
The only compact digital cameras which produce good to fantastic images (in the respect of low chromatic aberration, low flare, high sharpness and high contrast), are some of those from Leica. But the Leica's are really expensive. Like the Leica M8.
I am judging cheap compact cameras here and not pro gear. But I can't beleive that in this day and age of computer modelling of lenses and the large size of some of the lenses on some compact digitals, that they can't produce a decent lens on an affordable camera.
For the price of a Leica M8 plus lens, you'd be not far off the price of a brand new small car.
Stepping up to an affordable DSLR on the other hand, shows a dramatic improvement in lens quality and thus final results. The difference is amazing.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
That's the catch. If you want a superzoom camera that is actually compact, you pretty much need a smaller sensor.
In good light, that may be perfectly acceptable.
In bad light -- well, for instance I've been shooting outdoor softball, after sunset, lit only by field lights. If I don't want motion blur, and don't want to potentially distract a player with a flash (and I doubt my 4xAA, GN 50m @ ISO 100 flash will reach the outfield...), I'm going to be using ISO 1600 or 3200. That's not going to be pretty on a small-sensor camera.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
while digital has lowered the price plenty, it's also lowered the bar
The same is sort-of-true for the production of engineering drawings, except now it probably costs more to create such a drawing with CAD. I am referring to drawings that must be read by and worked with by humans in the field, not a digital file that can be exported to a device that can machine/weld/extrude/assemble something in a factory.
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but there is something about a DSLR that will trump a point and shoot any day... There are pictures you just can't get with a PAS. I recently took a shot of a pelican case flying through the air above some class 3 rapids, and you can read the writing on the case... It was taken at 75m away. I challenge anyone to take that photo with any point and shoot.
except one, which is tagged with !itsatrap
Sorry about that one. I was trying to explain how to use the tagging system today, and it backfired. I removed my !itsatrap tag, but it was too late.
What do you think of the features of the new K10D compared to K100D? I ordered the K10D for my wife who still isn't sure whether to part with her film SLRs (Pentax K1000 and Minolta XG-M). She has more lenses for Pentax (and Minolta is dead for all practical purposes) so I ordered a Pentax after pitching to her all the features. The problem is, the release of the K10D is delayed and it is still not out (it was supposed to be the start of October). So now I am thinking to just cancel the order and get her a K100D...
I had about 5 point and shoot cameras and two D-SLRS. The Canon EOS D30 and D60. Owning the D60 with the cheap 50mm f1.8 I took the best photos in my life. I was forced to sell them :(
Now I can't buy one (they're expensive) and I own a nice cheap Canon powershot A75. Which in light conditions can take
good photos. But everytime I click the A75 I think of my old D60.
From the article:
I Am Not A Photographer, so can someone please tell me how the DSLR camera can instantly startup? Is it standard for DSLR cameras to have fast flash charging times? Is it because point'n'shoot cameras need "boot up" time to prepare autofocus algorithms? Are we talking about the time it takes to mechanically extend a point'n'shoot lens with that awful servo sound?
Thanks.
A good forum for all digital camera stuff is Digital Photography Review, or at least the site's forums. The people who use it are all pretty helpful.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
A DSLR for when you want to go out and make wonderful photographs.
A Canon Ixus for taking to events where you may want a few quick photos, but don't want the hassle of a DSLR.
The Ixus will fit in your pocket.
http://davesboat.blogspot.com/
Well, dSLRs arent for everyone. Photographers take photos, not cameras, and all a dslr will do with a bad photographer - well bad isnt the right word, inexperienced is - will produce sub par pictures.
For instance, your depth of field is more pronounced, which is favorable if you know what you're doing, but unfavorable if you're a point and shooter who wants and expects every single thing in the photo to be in focus.
Another factor that should scare off newcomers is lenses. Don't buy an SLR if you can't buy good glass for it. There is no point. If you're not willing to spend at least $600-800 on decent glass just get an ultra zoom point and shoot and be glad you didn't waste your money. Sub par lenses produce sub par pictures - most $150 consumer zooms are 3.5-5.6, which means they are generally useless indoors - unless you crank up the ISO, which will result in a noisy picture. Or you can use an on camera flash, which will result in the deer in the headlights look. Or you could open the shutter longer, which results in motion blur. Its bad all around. There are ways to get around this - external flash ($300), fast zooms ($1k), tripod ($100).. but each has its limitations.
Don't buy a dslr unless you want to invest in the whole package. Glass, accessories, everything.
It depends upon which Nikon DSLR you're looking at as to whether they will accept the type of lens that you have.
The D70 will take all AI lenses and newer, the D200 will also allow you to use your old manual focus lenses (up to a point). I think the cut-off point is generally the lenes made around 1970.
(The Canon cameras will also take older SLR lenses but I believe that the ones that they accept are more restrictive.)
As for the RAW formats, well, each camera seems to have a new revision of the specification, this is both Nikon and Canon. The newer Nikon specifications encrypt their light balance data for some unknown reason and the latest version adds a cryptographic signature to "prove" that the image hasn't been tampered with. There is also, since the D200, a compressed raw format which uses a slightly lossy compression.
You should also note that what each of the manufacturers consider as raw data from their camera is different. The Canon cameras do far more image processing on the camera before writing the raw file than the Nikon cameras, such as sharpening and colour "enhancement" whereas the Nikons generally strip the bottom 4 bits off the bottom of the 16 bit output from the sensor (which is below the noise threshhold of the Sony sensor) before creating the NEF file without any other processing.
Someone above said that Canon use 32bits per pixel per channel in their raw format.. well, at the moment there are no 32bit sensors out there, so I think he's a bit of a Canon fan-boy. Even Canon's sensor only really generates 12-14 bits of usable image data.
I hope that this helps.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
I loved using my SLR for over 25 years, but I'm not convinced I need a DSLR. Granted I'm only an occasional amateur photographer these days. I have an older Olympus D-40 non-SLR (not to be confused with the apparent new Nikon D40 mentioned here).
With my camera I can adjust aperture, shutter speed, focus, white balance, sharpness, flash sync, i.e., everthing mentioned.
I'm not sure I'm convinced a larger sensor is superior. It would inherently have more pixels, but I don't feel the need for more pixels. I know there are applications where one would want or need more.
A smaller sensor means smaller lenses, and smaller again is not necessarily worse. My camera does have glass lenses and not plastic.
On noise, I can't argue the point other than to say that I don't experience noise as a problem. It's true that I don't shoot in a lot of low-light situations.
I have to grant the point on accessories. The main thing I wish I had was a flash connection so I could use my old vivitar flash and bracket, and not be limited to the on-camera flash. Or I'd even accept a proprietary external flash.
No shutter lag. This is the biggest problem and annoyance with the camera I have and I think all cameras from it's time and category. However, I think this problem is solved in most new cameras, not just DSLRs. I expect its related to how fast you can unload the sensor and write the data to the storage medium. As an aside, I would expect it to be faster to unload the smaller sensor on the smaller camera.
Regarding the viewfinder, I do miss the giant, bright viewfinder field of my SLR. However, my digital camera viewfinder is sufficient, it comes close to matching the image, and the LCD is useful and matches the image exactly.
Ergonomics. After years of cradling my SLR and lens in my left hand, I had to learn how to hold a non-SLR digital camera: Make a thumbs-up with your left hand. Now you have a very stable platform for your camera. Also this keeps your fingers from blocking the lens, etc. Operate the shutter release and controls with your right hand.
Regarding price, I'm sure DSLRs are cheaper than they used to be, but they are still more expensive than the other digital cameras.
I had owned Canon Digital Ixus 500 for few years, and while it was (and is) a good point 'n shoot camera, I felt that it was time to move on. So I went and bought a Canon Eos 400D with the kit-lens. I have now used the Eos for few weeks, and the difference between the two cameras is huge. Few things I have noticed:
:).
- The act of taking a picture is A LOT nicer on the Eos. With the Ixus, I held the camera with my fingers in front of my face. And it made no sound when taking the picture. With the Eos I need to really aim the camera, and the grip is way superior when compared to the Ixus. And it makes a proper sound! I just love the sound the camera makes when I take the picture. You would think that the sound does not matter, but it does.
- Speed. with the Ixus I could take one picture every 2-3 seconds or so. With the Eos I can take several pictures in a row. If I see something interesting, I can take half a dozen pictures of it in a time of few seconds. I can then pick and choose the best picture. With the Ixus I could take only 1-2 pictures in that timeframe, so I had a lot less to choose from. If one of the pictures failed for some reason, I would have only one picture left.
- Quality. Pictures I take with the Eos simply look better, even on full-auto settings. It's as simple as that.
- Control. I had no way to directly adjust the aperture or shutter in the Ixus. I could just tell the camera that I want to take certain type of picture, and all I could do is to hope that the camera adjusts the settings accordingly. I a way, I could only make suggestions to the camera. On the Eos I can tell the camera EXACTLY what I want, and the camera does it, even though it might not make any sense.
- Pixels. The lowest resolution available on the Eos is about the same size as the biggest resolution on the Ixus
Yes, the Eos was more expensive that compact-digitals. And it took a huge chunk from my "laptop-fund". But I still feel that it has been the best purchase I have made in a long time. If you are thinking about moving from compact to DSLR, I have nothing but positive comments to say about the switch.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
The real reason to buy a DSLR is that it won't play a badly-sampled sound file of a camera click when you take your picture, it'll actually click.
Point and shoots have price, weight, and model range in their favour. Many have a movable LCD viewfinder which allows you to point the thing over other people's heads. Decent quality compacts have full control over aperture, shutter speed and white balance and good build quality, and the high end compacts have very good sensors and optics, as well as decent ergonomics.
So, do you spend the extra in money and weight for interchangable lenses, and no shutter lag? If you're need those features then of course you do. Personally, I take photos at parties and science fiction conventions. A compact is portable, and since the images are going to be redced to 800x600 for display, the high quality optics and CCD are worthless.
All lenses that Nikon bundles with its DSLRs are pretty darn good, especially 18-70mm, 18-135mm and 18-200mm VR. Canon wants you to buy a lens right off the bat, even if you've bought a "bundled" one already. Granted, both N and C make some good lenses, but for a beginner who doesn't want to spend a fortune Nikon is a better choice.
If point and shoot camera's were in the same pricerange I might consider reading the article. But they are not. The article, and most people that will defend buying expensive equipment, have something else to defend:
If you have bought an expensive toy and somebody else comes with a very reasonable argument why you would have been better off buying something else/cheaper, you will look like a dumb fool with too much money (which, incidently, is most likely what you are). So all these heated arguments are IMHO not about if reflexes are better than compacts, but if the big spender is a fool with too much money that buys to impress. If the reflexes were cheaper than compacts, the big mouths here would have very similar stories, except their focus of desire would be a compact.
(and no, I will not buy a reflex, one reason for that is that they are too heavy and I don't have any use for a complicated lens&mirror system when I can't look through the viewfinder. I can't look trought the viewfinder because I hang my camera under a model airplane. 100gr compacts for me!)
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I have yet to see any digital camera that allows direct control of the CCD gain, even the simplest of spectroscopic imaging instrumentation allows direct control of the CCD gain. Consumer digital cameras have a long way to go, particularly their software, before they are anywhere near acceptable.
You just gave me a great idea: Someone should make a digital pinhole camera! Get some CCDs and line them up in the back of the box. :)
:\
If only I were more electrically inclined.
Yeah. I hate commercialization of the web too. Btw, do you mind paying the bandwidth bills for all my websites? Just a few hundred bucks a month will be fine. It goes toward a good cause: The decommercialization of my site. How 'bout it?
When I was choosing which DSLR to buy I found the reviews on Ken Rockwell's site informative. He is an experienced photographer who in the past mainly used Nikon gear, and is currently using some Canon equipment. He has reviews of a reasonable range of current equipment. You may find his general photography articles interesting as well.
I ended up buying a Nikon D200, 12 -24mm and 18 -200mm VR. The 18-200mm VR lens is the lens of the moment for Nikon who can't make them fast enough. Expect a long wait if you order one. If you are going to wait for the Nikon D40 to come out be aware that it is rumored to only work with Nikon's AF-S lenses. This is unusual for Nikon as most bodies they make work with a large range of their older lenses.
Steve
Their ideas look good on paper, but real-world performance had plenty of shortcomings, and weren't really taken seriously by very many people. That could have been because the foveon chips were only picked up by Sigma (who doesn't exactly have a history of high quality), or it could have been that only Sigma picked them up because of the problems. I don't know, I can't say.
In any case, interpolating for color, so to speak (as sensors with bayer filters do) works out much better than interpolating for detail, as the Foveons have to do in order to claim 10 or 14 megapixels.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
If you have never used an SLR before and have no investment in lenses etc, by all means, go ahead and buy a DSLR. You won't be disappointed by the image quality.
However, if you are a longtime film-SLR user and have an investment in SLR lenses for some platform, then watch out!
In a nutshell, most of the lenses in your collection will not be really usable with your shiny new DSLR! This is because most DSLR use an imaging sensor that has a different size than the 35 MM film size. What this means is that the effective focal lengths of all your lenses are going to be different from what they are when fixed to a film camera. Nikon has a multiplication factor of 1.5. Depending on the model, Canon has a multiplication factor of 1.5 or 1.6. [Some of Canon's Very Expensive cameras have a 35-mm size sensor and have no multiplication factor]
What this means is that your 50mm lens will have an effective focal length of75 mm, reducing its utility considerably. You will find that you will have to replace pretty much all your stock lenses with new "digital-ready" lenses, a pretty significant investment overall. I am surprised that the article did not mention it.
Why is this? The camera companies say that full-frame sensors are expensive, and that they don't contribute much to image quality anyway. The former might be true, but not something that investment and time won't fix. The latter is completely bogus. They said the same thing about the APS system, but the marketplace quickly figured out that this was not right and rejected the system.
Here is the real reason: Companies like Canon and Nikon make far more money on their lenses than they do on their cameras. They are always looking for ways to make you buy more lenses. If their old-line lenses could work with the new DSLRs, they have lost a huge profit opportunity! But they cannot change the format of the camera-lens connector without a huge backlash from the customers. So this is a way by which they can force the adoption of an entirely new line of lenses, at the same time maintaining plausible deniability.
If you regularly use an external flash, you will have to buy a new external flash as well. The flashes that used to work with film cameras are not fully compatible with the DSLRs.
Magnus
I own a dSLR, but I still like film. Kodak Tri-X is good stuff to use for candid shots. I love the way that Ilford Delta 100 looks when printed with a high contrast filter. Fujichrome Velvia produces colorful slides that I can project onto a wall for a slideshow.
An SLR is good because it allows the lens to be changed. Different lenses open up possibilities not present on camera with a single lens. The TTL viewfinder allows for a paralax free view of the scene. Oh, and a dSLR has much better image quality than most point and shoot cameras.
Since it already has 16-bit colours per channel (Cinepaint/FilmGimp) and handles more RAW formats (unless you keep upgrading and then you can lose older cameras). The only need for PS is for sopt colours. But if you're using them, you aren't using the photo.
GIMP is completely happy in this role and in some ways outshines PHotoshop.
If someone is a "serious" shooter, willing to part with the cash and put in the time to research his options, then there's really no point in advising him on what to buy, he'll figure it out even it if it means going through 3 or 4 purchases, and there's really no way for someone else to know what your needs are with any satisfying exactness. If someone isn't, then almost any camera will do. I speak here as someone who must've made ~40 camera-related buy-and-sell transactions on ebay over the past 2 or 3 years. Whatever camera was wroth buying I bought, tried, and sold. At one time my collection of cameras in the drawer was in the teens. What cameras do I prefer now after going through the dearest or rarest? The cheapest no nonsense ones.
as a GIMP plugin.
The importing isn't all that flexible, but you can import it with one set of levels, import another layer with another set...
and get HDR lighting that way.
They are working on letting GIMP use 16-bit colours and simplify the import of RAW by that method: you'd interpolate the colours in to pixels that colour wasn't measured in but leave the intesity resolution at the same (or higher: 12->16bit, leaves room for 4-bit interpolation) colour. IIRC there's thought to use floating point colour in memory and flatten out when saving.
This is not my sandwich.
That's just fud.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
As a photographer specializing in pet photography I decided to start sharing some of my buying choices and review what I use. I've put it up at Nikon Camera reviews . Some people seem to think that it's usefull for Nikon reviews. It's biased towards what works for me but it could help someone out.
Who modded this insightful?
I'm sorry, you can get a DSLR for the same price as a "prosumer" non SLR - In the region of $600 and don't forget your film costs, and it will be superior in every respect except pocketability. They'll take many hundreds of shots between charges (you really would have to go crazy to not get a day's worth of shots from one charge). As for the last point, well you can make an attempt at the grain etc., in Photoshop et al, but sure, you won't get the exact characteristics - however, of the options, looks and effects open to you with digital, very few are available with film.
Yeah, if you're a stubborn Luddite and you work hard at it, you can find some areas where film cameras still excel, but they're few and far between.
I'm personally going the other way. Ideally I'd like a decent DSLR and a super-compact. The latter would live in my bag and the former would be for specific opportunities. In reality, what would happen is that the latter would be in my bag, and the DSLR would be in the cupboard.
..
DSLRs have lots of problems, even ignoring the technical ones (dust being the biggest). Pull one out in public and you'll get treated differently (usually negatively). Pull out a good quality compact and everyone will ignore you. The one above, they're just NOT everyday-portable.
I see his point, but just to rebuff some of them
Creative Control:
Not seen the Casio Z1000 or Z800, the Canon S70 or S80, the Panasonic LX1, LX2, the Leica Digilux 1 or 2 or many more then? There are quite a few very small cameras that give you lots of camera control.
Accessories Galore:
Plenty of cameras either have after-market add ons to give them a standard fitting, or even manufacturer add-ons. However, try getting a manageable underwater case for your new D80 - it'll cost a fortune and act as it's own personal float.
No Shutter Lag
Instant Startup
Sure, but there are plenty of the DSLRs that are pretty crap in this respect too. The latest generation are the first you can reasonably rely on.
Higher Build Quality
See above list for pretty well constructed, metal bodied cameras.
Viewfinder
I'm not sure you'll get many Electronic View Finders in the smallest compacts, but there are increasing numbers as the size increases. Other than that, you often get reasonable rangefinders. Not SLR, but you get used to it very quickly
Ergonomics
Seriously? It's not always better to have a huge luggable camera to hold.
Price
Seriously? No really, SERIOUSLY? The price of the compacts is lower than the DSLRs. End of story.
We are talking SLRs now aren't we - digital compacts are useless at high ISO (their sensors are a tiny fraction of the size of a DSLR), but a digital SLR at ISO 1600 is less noisy than T-Max. Generally, the noise may be ugly in color, but to compare apples with apples, if you desaturate your digital shot to B&W it'll be cleaner and more detailed than T-Max.
If you take his totally blinkered advice then you must have quite a lot of money, not mind missing a lot of shots because you couldn't carry your camera around with you and ignore the existence of the Fuji F30 and F11 in additon to unforgivably ignoring the excellent prosumer (but non-dSLR) cameras of which there are many.
The fellow should have at least given a nod to prosumer cameras which do enough, for most amateur needs, of what dSLRs offer, and for much less money and much greater portability.
By the way, the reason I mention the F30 is because its one of the few consumer-level cameras that are said to be used by pros for carry-everywhere and no-flash-allowed-or-desired purposes, which is directly pertinant to this issue. For a significant proportion of prosumers it goes far enough to satisfy a number of his reasons for buying a dSLR :
You also don't need to spend extra on batteries and a charger as it has a rediculous battery life (CIPA 580), nor on a card reader as it uses USB 2 at 'high-speed'. On the negative side it uses xd cards, but the cost of the fast 'Type H' xd cards evens out since the difference between fine and normal jpegs, in the F30, is so small that one can safely ignore 'fine' and get twice as many photos on the card, rivalling an SD card of twice the capacity when used in other cameras. I'm speaking of direct experience here - I've examined photos that I've taken and the difference is barely discernable at 100% crop (power-lines against a white background).
The guy who wrote that article is just not looking around.
This is a crock. DSLRs are not for everyone. Sure quality, control, etc. are great. But for many the bulk is a problem. DPASs can be carried in your coat pocket or a purse and in situations where weight and bulk are problems (such as on the ski slope) DSLRs are a pain. Some ski areas don't allow bags or packs on the lift. Also you can't beat a DPAS when you want to catch something fleeting. DSLRs have to be taken out of a bag or a pack and by then the action may be gone, or worse the people whose picture you want to take weren't willing to wait while you fiddle with settings and lenses. Finally, most people don't want to wrestle with lens choices. They just want to take pictures they can use to remember a memorable event. They aren't serious photographers. If you can't set the time on your VCR how are you going to learn all the intricacies of a DSLR.
we really dont need a flapping mirror, a giant piece of glass - the penta-prism, a focal plane shutter with 16 blades triggered by a spring loaded mechanism etc. This is all obsolete stuff. and do you need to peer through a small eye-piece to see what you are going to get. Its just so much easier to compose a picture when you look at the picture on a screen rather than look at the 'scene' through the eyepiece. That's why professionals even in the film age used Hasselblad style waist level finders where you look at the image on a matte glass. The successful high end digital camera of the future will be something like the Sony R1 - a solid, high end lens mated to a very good quality sensor, (and it will cost a good deal of money). The 'SLR'ness in a digital SLR is completely unnecessary. It is just mechanically flimsy and noisy.
Their ideas look good on paper, but real-world performance had plenty of shortcomings
Actually real world performance was great, at ISO 100... at higher ISO's measured noise was lower but the appearance of the noise was more noticeable.
The larger problem was that the camera lacked features people felt they needed, like in-camera JPG and on-camera flash. So it dissuaded a lot of people from buying the camera that might have looked at it otherwise. All of those (and I do mean all) of those issues have been rectified in the SD-14, which offers just about any feature you would care to have on a camera and also improves some key things like auto-focus speed and accuracy.
In any case, interpolating for color, so to speak (as sensors with bayer filters do) works out much better than interpolating for detail, as the Foveons have to do in order to claim 10 or 14 megapixels.
Actually it does not work out better - you get color artifacts, and detail suffers because detail has to be interpolated from spatially separated photosites for each color channel, making it hard to judge sometimes exactly where the boundary is between two colors - a typical artifact is a fine line like a twig or antenna, that pops in and out of existence as you reach single-pixel resolution. The new SD-14 is officially a "14MP" camera by the photosite count, and judging from past performance of the SD-10 it should be the equal of a 10MP bayer based camera in terms of detail - again with no color artifacts.
With the SD-10 it was easy to see in tests the images held slightly more detail than a 6MP bayer camera.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My current Nikon d50 is my sixth camera; first I had a polaroid as a teenager, then a succession of DPAS units as they came out and progressed, then finally the Canon Powershot SD10 (still a Point-And-Shoot) that gave me 4 megapixels but fit in my pocket next to my cell phone. Those were the days! But for the past year or so I've been using a DSLR, my first SLR really, and it's helped me grow past the limits that point-and-shoot models imposed on me, yet still I missed the portability of the SD10, and so I recently swapped cams with a friend for about two weeks; his camera being a fancy Leica point-and-shoot. Of course his camera is not as portable as my old Canon was, but still, I can never go back from SLR. I felt like I was wearing boxing gloves to handle an origamy project. Plus nowadays you can't seem to get a cell phone without a cam, so those are portable, but I have not found any interest for it and it remains unused on my new phone. The thing is that I've rarely bothered with capturing regular images, whether it be vacation or family pictures, instead I was always exploring artistically, though I was never more than an amateur, and still am today. So I'll keep on lugging my gear most everywhere I go, which now excludes concerts, which used to be a fun challenge due to physical and lighting contraints!
The 17-200mm F2 lens. It's about $1200-1400, but it's the one I've been salivating over since I got my camera a mere 10 months ago. It's almost a "does anything" lens. The write-ups on it are very positive. Tamron makes some decent short and macro lenses, although they tend to be noisier and heavier than Canon according to reviews, and Sigma's I've had for 30 years, they're a fine lens for their cost.
BTW, in that 10 month time period I've taken over 2K pictures. That's more pictures than I've taken on film in 5 years, primarily because of the costs associated with film and development. Not to mention that with iPhoto and Photoshop on a Mac, organizing and dealing with various issues of the pictures are cake. I'm looking at getting Capture One or something like it to more effectively display and deal with the RAW output I'm now solely using (Capture One allows for simple and quick batch process of white balance, for instance). DSLRs are definitely the way to go.
That 50mm F1.8 prime lens is a great little lens, but I'm also looking for something shorter, as it requires you to be quite a ways back from your subject if you want anything more than a face. I can't decide if I want just the 17-200 lens (perhaps a little bulky) or just buy another shorter prime. The one thing with primes are no telephoto. (Duh:) Then again, you don't suffer from any of the shortcomings of variable focus lenses and they're generally lighter too.
I also am thinking of getting a 60mm Macro EFS lens (about 90mm for portrait) This lens isn't too expensive at about $400, is fast, and will allow for interesting nature photography among other things.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
300dpi
You fail to understand that PPI (not dpi) is quite different than the resolution of a printing device. Where did you get the magical 300 DPI number? Even if 300PPI came from Fujitsu they are probably the last company to mention the LPI of their production equipment.
Like most "Common Knowledge," you are automatically accepting everything everyone around you says. If you asked, "Where did that belief come from?" you will find nearly all digital imaging beliefs are based on rumors, press releases and magazines who have been pumped full of convenient half-truths to sell products.
Please, take a great deal of time to establish the facts regarding digital imaging and it's translation into the analog world. In the end, there will be a whole lot less to talk about and you won't be so poorly informed.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I have a D70s and SB-800 and I absolutely LOVE the wireless stuff, if you want to get really serious about your lighting you'd be MUCH better off picking up some inexpensive monoblock strobes. A Nikon SB-800 is in the neighborhood of $300, actually MORE expensive than an AB400 or AB800 strobe and only marginally cheaper than an AB1600, which is close to ten times the light output of a an SB800. I have a 400 and an 800 and I've taken fashion photos at night over a thirty-foot-square area. That's a hell of a lot of illumnaton. The big strobes are also wireless, triggered be a light sensor, and they're future-proof - Nikon could someday change the wireless system so it no longer works with the current generation of speedlights and you have a pile of expensive paperweights or a rats nest of sync cords.
Of course, with the strobes you lose i-TTL functionality, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. TTL gives you great evenly-balanced exposures for snapshots and simple portraiture, but for more creative and professional lighting effects you want and need the additional control that you get by doing things manually. Come to think of it, that's one of the reasons people buy SLRs in the first place...I guess that makes them a winning combination!
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
like it's a bad thing, and then hit it on the head in your next sentence. "The photographer" DEFINITELY makes girls do veeeery interesting things, especially if you go with the "why yes, I AM a photographer..but I'm here on my own so the host|ess will never see the pictures" line.
:D
Hell. You should see what happens when they get back to your place and see the strobes in the bedroom
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
One big reason not to get a DSLR: the sensor dust problem. Until someone comes up with a DSLR that fixes this, I'm avoiding them. And it definitely is a fixable problem.
Also, calling any camera with a fixed lens 'point-n-shoot' is rather silly. My camera (DMC-FZ10) has full manual controls and I use them often.
If it is not point-and-shoot, how can you focus your image at the right 'moment' and take picture?
You see this picture and notice:
- The wonderful tonal range and interesting composition
- Whoa... look at them tits.
That's it. If you answered (1), go buy a Canon DSLR (Canon is the overall the best system for someone starting out with DSLR's today. Really) or if you're really moved by the play of light and shade in that picture, you probably want to buy a film camera and shoot ilford black and white film.And btw,if you answered 2, (and assuming you're a typical slashdotter ) you'll probably never see tits like that in real life.
It's been a while since I've shot film, but if I remember correctly, White Balancing was never an issue. I've found that with my D50 I have to realllllllly keep track of how my camera is set in regards to white balancing (even on Auto... I use "Probably" aka Program and Manual unless I hand my camera off to someone so I can be in the photo).
The "auto" WB mode does ok for most stuff if I'm using a flash or outdoors. When I move inside though, it becomes apparent how poorly the camera recognizes Incandescent light bulbs or flourecent lighting. Granted when I go do post processing of the RAW images, I have the option to correct these, but if you're just an average guy taking family snaps you could really be disappointed that your 600$ super camera is making Aunt Helen look jaundiced, like an Ooompa Loompa, or a Smurf. With film, what you see has usually been what you get. With digital, it's been my experience that if you don't pay attention, you may not always get what you see.
I own a Nikon (so I'm not a canon fanboy, etc) but it seems that the nikon DSLRs have a fair bit of noise at 1600 even if you do flatten it to black and white.
I still think film has its place...
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
The article neglected to mention that sometimes the greater depth of field (DOF) inherent in digicams is an advantage. DOF controls how much of the photo is in focus. It's nice to be able to limit the DOF for subject isolation and creative control, but sometimes it works against you.
High magnification (macrophotography) and high depth scenes (landscapes) often benefit from a wide DOF. With a DSLR, one must stop down significantly to get a DOF that compares to a compact. That is why macrophotographers have macro flash units and landscape photographers have tripods: they need lots of light or long exposures because of the little light coming through the narrow aperture.
A digicam, on the other hand, has so much DOF that even f/2.8 will have as much depth of field as f/16 on a DSLR, yet it collects 32 times more light (5 stops)! But consider that the DSLR can likely boost the sensitivity 2 stops before it reaches the noise levels of the digicam, so we could say the comparison is between f/2.8 (ISO 100) and f/8 (ISO 400). Still, that is three stops: a lot of light.
Daniel
Photographers and wannabe photographers should read this article and heed it. DSLRs are great if you are going to use them. Use them for real photography.
Unless you are going to make an event out of shooting photography, however, you are better off with a point and shoot. Most people I know want to whip out their camaera and get a shot of their trip/party/kid/someone else's kid/etc.. You should ask yourself how you plan to use the camera before you go for the SLR, because if you are buying a camera to 'take pictures' as oppose to buying one to 'shoot photography', an SLR is a waste of time, money, effort, and space. You will probably not use it and end up buying the point and shoot anyways.
When I bought my Canon Rebel XT, I got the vertical battery grip along with it. It came with two interchangeable battery trays, one that holds two proprietary lithium-ions, and one that holds 6 standard AA's. It's standard for all vertical grips for Canon's entry and advanced amateur film and digital bodies to take AA's. I've never run out of power yet, but I keep that tray in my bag anyway in case of emergencies.
I almost wish I had gotten into Pentax instead of Canon in my film days, that K100D is an awesome available-light street shooter. Compact, quiet, nice antishake. I tried one with the equally tiny FA28/2.8 at a store once. The perfect digital street shooting combo. (For those of us mortals who can't afford $10000 for an M8 and various associated 10%-better-and-%300-more-expensive lenses, anyway.)
Good quality pictures, the sort of thing you see in the galleries of highly rated photos on www.photo.net, come from RAW photos that are processed in Photoshop, Photoshop, Photoshop, etc to bring out the best of the shot.
As long as we're talking about spending money and damning ourselves to the fires of closed-source hell, Apple's Aperture is an excellent RAW workflow-management and library tool. (Well, it damn well better be for $300.) It doesn't replace Photoshop, and it doesn't really try. But what it does replace are the various converters that you need to use, in order to convert from RAW into TIFF or PSD before you can process in Photoshop. It also does all the tedious file management and sorting tasks for you. Its batch processing and metadata manipulation are slick, too.
If you shoot a lot of RAW stuff (enough so that file management is beginning to be a drag) Aperture is the best way I've seen to manage it all. It lets you sort and organize stuff, it handles preserving the originals for you, so that you can't ever mess one up by mistake; it lets you create 100s of "versions" of a photo without duplicating it, and it offers one-click editing in Photoshop. You click on an image, you edit in Photoshop, you save and quit PS, and it's saved in there as another 'version' of the photo in Aperture.
Plus, if you want it to, it can 'reference' files you already have stored in your other organizational schemes, so you can play with it without committing. That to me was a nice touch. And once you get using it, it'll do a one-touch backup and sync of your work (they expect that you'll do this to a removable hard disk), including pulling all the referenced files onto the backup for you.
After managing a lot of photos using tons of hierarchial folders and binders of DVDs for offline storage, Aperture is pretty slick. If you have a Mac (or are open to buying a Mac) and haven't ever looked at it, or haven't looked at it since it went to the 1.5 version, it's worth checking out.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I'm not going to get in-depth with the reasons here - I am not a pro photographer, nor are most people, but I know how to properly set things like white balance, shutter speed, focal aperture, etc... to get the effects I want.
I have a Sony DSC-P150 I got a few years ago. It was about $400 at the time, and is a 7MP camera with built-in Zeiss lens.
A friend of mine got an Olympus DSLR (don't know the model) also 7MP.
Comparing the two:
- For ordinary photos, we're about comparable, except my pics are slightly blurrier (I'd say 90-95% quality of his DSLR), and he can save uncompressed, where I can't.
- In low light - actually both cameras are outstanding. In extreme darkness, I can see a little grain on my camera, but it's so small I can't tell if it's the CCD or just JPEG artifacts.
- Startup time is about the same. Actually, I'm probably about a half second faster, and what's more, my camera has to remove its lens cover and extend the lens. We can both go from off to having shot one pic, saved it, and ready to shoot again in about 3-5 seconds, so so much for the DSLR speed argument. My time also includes autofocus.
- He can do extreme, artistic, impractical things like set his shutter speed to several seconds. Fine - even if I had it, I wouldn't use it.
- THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE: My camera was $400 a couple years ago, and his was $800 this year. 200% the cost, 110% the quality, 120% the functionality... to me, it just doesn't add up why you'd pay that much, but hey - it's his hobby, so whatever floats his boat... For most people, including avid amateur photographers, I'd say only consider DSLR if you're getting REALLY serious about photography, or want some heavy-duty extra features that wouldn't be needed in "normal" photography. Otherwise, you're just paying for a camera that lacks preview ability, and collects dust on its sensor... oh, and that can interchange lenses, but then again with a cheap adapter, I could do the same - and there are point & shoot cams that already have a ring for lenses on them.
Well, that and that it's far more an artists tool than a photographers tool. The majority of photographers that use DSLRs aren't going to be doing art prints. And in situations like fashion photography, a medium format film camera simply isn't a viable option for obvious reasons. Digital cameras beat film cameras in every category that matters to the majority of the people that buy pro-level cameras. That's why the film field is dying out as fast as it is. For the top .0000001% of photographers who are artists to the point where digital would hold them back - Ansel Adams and the like, in other words, film is the best. But that's very, very, very few people. If you're lucky enough to be one of them, awesome. But for everyone else? Digital makes the most sense in the final argument.
Agreed, plenty of noise at 1600, but my point is so does T-Max. I have scanned T-Max at lower res than my DSLR, and its "noise", or grain, is much stronger than the digital. The T-max noise is, however, more pleasing to look at.
Anywhere you can pull out a compact and not get noticed, you can pull out an SLR and not be noticed. Who gives a shit if someone sees you take a photo anyway, you're not some kind of creepy voyeur are you? Of course not, so just take the photos and be done with it! Nobody really cares as long as you don't make a big deal out of it and just mind your own business.
The two hottest digital SLR offerings right now are the Nikon D80 and Canon XTi, both recently introduced with 10 megapixel sensors. The Canon offers a bit more image quality for the price, while the Nikon costs a bit more but has better ergonomics. This website compares the D80 vs XTi with links to reviews, discussions, and related cameras: Canon Rebel XTi vs Nikon D80
vsxl.com - Compare cameras like the Canon Rebel XTi vs. Nikon D80