Seeking camera recommendations

[LWW]

As to what I would suggest, I would go Nikon all the way. Most pros and serious amateurs do also. I'll grant you there are other good choices out there but IMHO they all fall short somewhere.THIS is a great starter set. It's all manual, and that really is a good way to learn, but is under $220.00.

THIS is more or less the same thing except autofocus and all the features I mentioned earlier for under $240.00 and an AWESOME starter setup IMHO.

THIS is an ED glass, highest quality, zoom telephoto for under $280.00. They have a cheaper version with non ED glass but I think the ED glass is well worth the difference.

HERE is a very capable flash for under $130.00 if you want to upgrade from the built in flash (none of the built ins are very powerful).

HERE is a tripod with case that will handle more weight than you have and be very stable. They have a pan head version for a few bucks more if you want to dual use it with a camcorder. This one's under $100.00.

HERE is a pretty good monopod for under $58.00. These are as handy as all get out. You use the monopod for the front leg and you for the back two and voila'...very near the stability of a tripod but also very mobile and quick to be setup.

HERE is a good bag to carry it all in. $39.00 and you have room to grow. OR THIS if you want to wear the bag.

$850.00, add in $125.00 for a circular polarizing filter and a couple of haze filter and a few other creative filters and a really good camera strap LIKE THIS and you have a very very capable total system for under the $1,000.00 mark, and you can add on pieces here and there if you choose also.

It's your choice. Choose wisely. I hope I've helped.

LWW

 

[LWW]

runscott that's a good example of the *POP* that shallow depth of field can add. It mimics human memory because the human brain would filter out the background and concentrate on what you saw.

Taken with program exposure or slower lens /film speed you would have taken a perfectly exposed pic with the background also in focus which would have made the end result far less dramatic.

LWW

 

[LWW]

Here is another.

LWW

 

[LWW]

And another.

LWW

 

[LWW]

And my neighbors pet macaw appropriately named Saddam.

LWW

 

[LWW]

And my pet cockatiel Clyde.

Just a few examples of what can be done with shallow depth of field.

None of those were my 300MM f4 either, all were relatively inexpensive lenses shot wide open.

LWW

 

[LWW]

These are some pool related thoughts that are easy with film also.

LWW

 

[Rich R.]

I don't know if digital will ever equal film or not, but as of today it isn't even really close IMHO.

Actually, some of the newer digital camera's come pretty damn close to 35mm in quality.
I have seen poster sized prints, from digital cameras, with pin point sharpness and no visible grain. They were just beautiful.
Of course, this type of quality comes at a price. Hopefully, in time, that price will be coming down.

Film offers a warmth and depth of color which digital can't even touch.

Again, the photographs I saw compared very favorably.
I think, in this respect, a lot of the quality is dependant on the printing process.

Film offers the ability to buy off the shelf film as high as 3200 speed which will have very minimal grain, anything even remotely close to that speed in digital will be fairly full of noise.

I hate to keep repeating myself, but some of the newer digital equipment has greatly reduced noise.

Film allows for wide angle shooting much better than digital due to the CCD size.

Some of the newer cameras have a full size CCD, so you should no longer have that problem.

To me digital does have two big edges. One is that lens focal length is effectively 1.5 times longer because of a CCD which is smaller than a 35MM film frame.

Unfortunately, this is a benefit you lose, with the new full size CCD.

The quality of digital cameras is growing in leaps and bounds. I purchased a top quality digital SLR approximately two years ago and now it is vertually obsolete. Unfortunately, my budget does not allow me to purchase the newest cutting edge cameras.

BTW, the high quality, poster size, photographs I mentioned above were taken with a very high quality 16.7 mp camera and I assume they were printed with the best equipment available.

 

[LWW]

Where to learn more?

I LOVE THIS SITE and I joined it about the same time I joined here but I have posted several items under the same SN "LWW".

There are some really great photogs on here also and I don't want to claim to be at the level of the best of them, but I think some of it is at least pretty good.

There is about everything on this site from basic beginner stuff to arcane B&W techniues to infrared and astrophotography, a few of those are mine.

If anyone wants to see what a camera geek I am go under the collectors section.

LWW

 

[LWW]

The quality of digital cameras is growing in leaps and bounds. I purchased a top quality digital SLR approximately two years ago and now it is vertually obsolete. Unfortunately, my budget does not allow me to purchase the newest cutting edge cameras.

BTW, the high quality, poster size, photographs I mentioned above were taken with a very high quality 16.7 mp camera and I assume they were printed with the best equipment available.

And I agree with you completely. I'm not at all anti digital, I just don't think it's time has fully arrived yet...although I'm confident it will.

In the meantime film will probably never be obsolete in my lifetime and I doubt that any digital camera will ever surpass film in quality, although in esoteric features it already has.

HERE is I assume the 16.7 MP camera you refer to, I assume. $7,395.95 without a lens or a filter!!! HERE is the KING DADDY RABBIT of digitals for $21,995.00.

These are the best the technology can come and they are only close to film versus $240.00 for film, all 3 choices need lenses.

Now I'll grant you that sooner or later digital will get there. Once you get there on clarity there is still the lesser vibrancy of tone and color.

Eventually I don't doubt they will overcome that as well. In the meantime my $7,400.00 to $22,000.00 wonder cam would have been obsolete at least once and probably 2 or 3 times while low tech film trudged on.

And once those problems are resolved and digital catches up with 35MM I'll just pull out my medium format Mamiya 645 which is in the 75-80 megapixel equivalent range and we can start all over.

After that there is still the 4X5 view cameras which are in the 425 megapixel range, and the 8X10 view cameras which are in the 1.7 GIGAPIXEL and the 16X20 view cameras that are in the 7 gigapixel range.

Nopw those are the lumbering giants that the likes of Ansel Adams used but other than size there is no reason they couldn't be automated.

I seriously doubt that they will ever be consumer use cameras due to size and weight...but digital surpassing or even equalling the best of film when it comes to quality is quite a ways down the road.

Now that all being said one of the main reasons I love Nikons is that I am confident that when Nikon brings to market a 25 megapixel SLR for around a $1,000.00 procepoint that all of my glass will call forward.

In closing I'm not digiphobic like some film fans and I'm not filmophobic like some digicam owners who don't want to hear they have less than the best quality because they have high tech...I'm costophobic and look for maximum cash:quality ratios. For now IMHO that's with film if quality is the ultimate goal...and it isn't really a very close race yet.

LWW

 

[Rich R.]

HERE is I assume the 16.7 MP camera you refer to, I assume. $7,395.95 without a lens or a filter!!!

You are correct.

Now that all being said one of the main reasons I love Nikons is that I am confident that when Nikon brings to market a 25 megapixel SLR for around a $1,000.00 procepoint that all of my glass will call forward.

Although Nikon may, some day, make that camera for that price, I'm not sure your glass will forward.[/QUOTE]
When I was researching digital and deciding on a camera, I was told that my Nikon glass would not forward.

 

[LWW]

-hasselblad has a 22 mega pix camera with a full size sensor that wouldnt effect wide angle

Already discussed...$22,000.00.

-canons top of the line has a full size sensor that wouldnt affect wide angle

Ditto, $7,400.00...and both will get you close to film.

-lcd viewfinders are easier to work with for me personally

Personal preference, and with shorter length lenses and more or less stationary objects I agree, using a telephoto lens handheld it's not even close.

-ccd being smaller and increasing focal length also means the lens was not made to work specifically with that size ccd and can possibly present other problems.

Not really, it means that the CCD takes the photo out of a smaller slice of the light that your lens takes in...going from a lens designed for a smaller CCD and using it on a film camera is where you have issues.

-digital images can be minipulated in any way and are much easier to work with.

And a typical flatbed scanner will digitize any pic and retain the color warmth and depth...a $229 Canon negative scanner takes it to a whole different level.

-digital does not have expensive time consuming processing

Not really. Most minilabs are around $0.25 a digital print and you still wait. That's $9.00 for a 36 exposure role equivalent that $10.00 to develop and print plus $2.50 for the film. More expensive but peanuts in the big picture and you wait either way.

Now you can print at home and that's digitals BIG appeal to the instant gratification society we live in, but then you have expensive paper, ink, and your own time and this is overall probably the most expensive route of all, although the fastest. Either way unless you use very expensive printers, papers, and inks you have digital pics that will be toast when film still oooks awesome.

-digital does not require expensive film

Not really. Film is almost free anymore and a digicam requires CF cards that are often the cost of 100 or more rolls of film alone.

-most pros have gone to digital technology

And speed of having a finished product again is the reason, not the quality of the product.

-digital is the present and the future

Future yes, present no. Just as when Polaroid instant cameras and Kodak 110's were the kings of the mass market disposable society 35 MM, 120 roll film, and larger formats were the quality and capability kings.

-film is the past and is present but dying

And they still are.

my belief would be for anyone starting out now to go digital. why learn a dying technolgy even if it does have some better qualities presently. digital is already catching it and will eventually surpass anything film can do.

If you were going to go with a system other than a Nikon of medium format I would probably agree.

OTOH as far as learning goes the key to good photography is learning light.

Too many people rely far too heavily on the fact that they can PhotoChop a mediocre picture. In the end they have anywhere from a few minutes to much longer involved and the result is a mediocre picture that's been PhotoChopped.

Had they understood the interactions of light the world they could have taken a photo in camera that would have far surpassed the digital after being warmed over.

LWW

 

[tedkaufman]

Camera choices and digital vs. film

Just for the record, I'm a pro photographer. I've been a pro for over 25 years; twenty of those years were shooting for advertising clients in NYC, where competition doesn't get any greater.

I basically agree with most of what you said about photo accessories and cameras. But I differ on a few significant points.

As far as choosing a camera these days, I agree that if ones budget allows it, an SLR or DSLR is the way to go.

But unless your budget is under $800, I would strongly advise going with a digital camera. Yes, film can produce great images, but the ease and convenience of digital so far outweighs film cameras, there is really very little reason to use film any longer. Mind you, I've shot a lot of film in my career.

The argument that film produces better images than digital is no longer valid. The typical 6-8mg DSLR produces superb quality images, every bit the equal of any film for print sizes up to 11x14, and with knowledgable tweaking, even 20x30.

The question of print longevity of inkjet prints is another area that has changed. Current inkjet prints are considerably longer lasting than standard color C-prints. Not only that, unless one shoots slides, a C-print is your only option. If slides are your choice, you can get R prints, which are terrible; C-prints from internegs (but they'd better be 4x5 internegs or the image quality will suffer greatly); Cibachrome, which can be beautiful, but are extremely demanding of expert masking and very expensive; or dye transfer, an arcane process which is monumentally expensive and only done by a handful of places anymore.

So print output basically comes down to C-prints vs. Inkjet. Inkjet prints are sharper, have better color fidelity, contrast and tonal scale. And they outlast C-prints, which are notorious for fading and color shifts. Also, it is far easier and cheaper to get a good inkjet print than a C-print. Of course you could get a drum scan of a slide or negative, and then have an Inkjet print done from that. But what's the point?

I have the greatest respect for Nikon, and I understand your loyalty to the brand, as well as appreciate Nikon's loyalty to their owners by not changing their lens mount.

That said, Nikon is constantly in catch-up mode to Canon in today's world. Canon is a vastly bigger company, with far more resources, and dramatically so in the area of R&D. With every technological advance Canon introduces, Nikon struggles to stay within 1-2 years behind.

For example, Canon makes their own sensors and has the research capability and manufacturing capabilty to set the standard. Canon offered a full-frame sensor years ago and Nikon still doesn't offer one. Another area is in IS (image stabilization) lenses. Canon introduced that technology 2-3 years ago and Nikon was at least a year behind; Canon offers it in many lenses, even down to the $400 price range, while Nikon only offers it is 2-3 of their most expensive telephotos. The list goes on and on. But one thing is abundantly clear--Canon leads, Nikon follows.

I also dispute the choice for anyone of a Leica camera. The only pro I knew in NYC who used Leica equipment was Ernst Hass, and he got his Leica stuff free. Other than him, and a few dedicated "artist" street photographers like Ralph Gibson, everyone used Nikon. Most of the people I knew who owned Leicas were doctors.

And what became of all those pro Nikon users? Well, with the exception of Pete Turner (my mentor) and Jay Masiel, who get their stuff free from Nikon, nearly all of them have switched to Canon. Why? See above. Oh, by the way, Turner and Masiel shoot digitally exclusively now.

One last thing about your comments on film speeds. High speed films are not a pro photographer's friend. We HATE using high speed films (or digital ISO). Going to a faster film speed is the absolute last resort. And I mean really last resort. Case in point, in 25 years of pro photography I've only used ISO 800 3-4 times. Nothing higher. I should also add, I've probably used a shutter speed of 1/2000 about the same number of times in 25 years. I would have to go look to see if my current cameras even offer 1/4000 or higher. I honestly don't know--or care.

 

[LWW]

Although Nikon may, some day, make that camera for that price, I'm not sure your glass will forward.

When I was researching digital and deciding on a camera, I was told that my Nikon glass would not forward.

FROM NIKON'S WEBSITE

The new D50 offers seamless compatibility with Nikon's extensive family of high-performance AF Nikkor lenses, as well as the expanding family of DX Nikkor lenses, providing superb color reproduction, razor-sharp image clarity and fast and accurate autofocus performance.

so again anything AF, mid 80's or newer, will function flawlessly.

Anything from about 1970 to the mid 80's feature AI or "aperture indexing" and these will work flawlessly other than they won't autofocus and will only do centerweighted metering as they lack the contacts for matrix metering. Anything pre AI can be modifed simply and cheaply to AI compatibility.

Now I'm not advocating that someone buy a digicam and then go shopping for 1960's era lenses. What I am stating is that if you had invested in Nikon 35MM SLR technology in 1959 you could have upgraded to any new camera body technology and lost nothing as far as capability. After that a few $hekel$ per lens and you were back up to date without having to sell a fortune in glass and then replace it.

It would have been the mid 80's with the advent of AF before a camera body would have any function your 1959 lens couldn't use. It would however still be totally functional and offer every mode that you were used to having.

If you had invested as a newbie in Nikon AF technology in the mid 80's when they were again innovators you could have went from the starter N2020 and upgraded to an F4 and an F5 and an F6 along the way and still not lost a thing. An N2020 in good shape sells today for well over half what it did in 1986 as it's still a very capable camera. An F4 and an F5 sell for more like 75% of their new cost so the cost of upgrasding body technology is minimized and all of your lens investment stays with you.

If you would have been sidetracked (duped) into the APS fad of the mid 90's your Nikon glass would have worked there also.

Now if 19 years later you decided to dump your Nikon film body and go digital you can do so and again you lost no capability at all, if anything you gained. My 80-200MM f2.8 ED zoom would now be an effective 120-300MM f2.8 ED zoom. The cost to buy a non zoom 300MM f2.8 for a film camera is around $4K and it's heavier and has no zoom capability...I would come out ahead by having invested in old tech.

I'm sorry if someone told you Nikon glass wouldn't carry forward, but they at best were clueless and at worst flat out lied to you.

I'm not trying to get an argument going and I'm not trying to sell anyone anything, I'm trying to give good honest advice on something that I do know what I'm talking about...much like you and many others have sone for me on billiards.

In any event the original poster has to decide their own direction, I can't choose for them.

LWW

 

[LWW]

One last thing about your comments on film speeds. High speed films are not a pro photographer's friend. We HATE using high speed films (or digital ISO). Going to a faster film speed is the absolute last resort. And I mean really last resort. Case in point, in 25 years of pro photography I've only used ISO 800 3-4 times. Nothing higher. I should also add, I've probably used a shutter speed of 1/2000 about the same number of times in 25 years. I would have to go look to see if my current cameras even offer 1/4000 or higher. I honestly don't know--or care

Well if I wasn't clear enough I thought that I had politely explained that the Leica owners were more into impressing people than being photographers. I also thought I had expressed a preference of glass speed over film speed as a choice and if I was lacking in that I apologize. I was more interested in helping a newbie who's budget precludes the investment, at least going in, that you and I have.

On who makes sensors and who doesn't that really doesn't concern me. I also am not a big fan of IS technology...but then I like you I'm sure learned the proper way to handhold a lens. I did some 200MM pics a weekend ago at 1/15 and 1/30 a second which are still pretty sharp without a monopod, although I was braced myself pretty well.

My biggest support of Nikon is because of the lens mount continuation and what I consider to be the main item in photography the glass quality...but to each their own.

As to PhotoChop, I don't think it's digiphobia...I use it myself...but it's my last line of defense and not my front line.

LWW

 

[runscott]

In any event the original poster has to decide their own direction, I can't choose for them.

LWW

That's for sure! I am admittedly biased toward hands-on technology - I think it's more fun to cook on the stove than in a microwave (don't own one), listen to ballgames on the radio (no t.v. except for movie rentals), write letters, listen to records on a turntable...and taking photos with a manual 35mm with Kodachrome 64 is just plain fun. If they ever invent space-age metal self-aiming pool cues with remote control triggers, I probably won't get one.

But I agree that digital photography will soon affordably pass film cameras and I'll probably join up when film-processing becomes difficult and unaffordable.

Some day ipods will be able to store a million albums...so what.

 

[Rude Dog]

How do you make the pics posted here in the forum so large? When I do it, my pics are so small it's hard to see what the hell it is. Well, this one's not so bad, but I've had some that are real tiny. BTW, this is my son, Dillon, in his Halloween costume.

 

[bruin70]

Already
Too many people rely far too heavily on the fact that they can PhotoChop a mediocre picture. In the end they have anywhere from a few minutes to much longer involved and the result is a mediocre picture that's been PhotoChopped.

Had they understood the interactions of light the world they could have taken a photo in camera that would have far surpassed the digital after being warmed over.

LWW

i think the average joe doesn't need this knowledge. it truely is a matter of convenience for them, and that is a main consideration. it's like a professional artist recommending the best paint brands to a newbie, when he should realize that it's not necessary for one starting out.

OTOH, a guy over at b&h photo said he was adamantly against digital until the pros started trading their haselblads in for digital slr's,,,,a year ago.

 

[LWW]

Depends on how they are archived.

Digital yes has a theoretical infinite lifetime...asuming than standards don't change, such as trying to print an old DOS file on Windows ME or even worse the ever dreaded HD crash.

They could be kept on CF cards indefinitely but once again who know's that USB will be around for a transfer in 10 yrs? Remember SCSI, parallel, serial, interfaces?

I'm not trying to convert anyone, but I'm also far more comfy with a standard that has been around for over 100 years and isn't going anywhere. Especially when the ne kid on the block is still inferior in quality and has standards which are still evolving.

My $0.02. YMMV.

LWW

 

[icon]

Depends on how they are archived.

Digital yes has a theoretical infinite lifetime...asuming than standards don't change, such as trying to print an old DOS file on Windows ME or even worse the ever dreaded HD crash.

They could be kept on CF cards indefinitely but once again who know's that USB will be around for a transfer in 10 yrs? Remember SCSI, parallel, serial, interfaces?

I'm trying to convert anyone, but I'm also far more comfy with a standard that has been around for over 100 years and isn't going anywhere. Especially when the ne kid on the block is still inferior in quality and has standards which are still evolving.

My $0.02. YMMV.

LWW

your opinions are much appreciated!