Digital Camera recommendations

I love my Nikon D7000 with the Nikon 28-300 mm zoom lens!

Carbon12 wrote:I love my Nikon D7000 with the Nikon 28-300 mm zoom lens!

Yep that's an awesome rig Carbon! I used to be a nikon guy back in the 35mmfilm days. My Stepdad was a feature Photog for the regional newspaper and had allot of latitude in what he worked. He had nikon stuff I got allot of hand-me-downs which I was thrilled to have! darkroom stuff too!

These days that little Canon G11 is always at hand. It's just ideal for everyday captures and really produces some sharp images for it's size. The handy factor and it's size and speed make it a really great P&S with great intuitive manual controls (wheels on top like old SLR's). No need to go into the menu every two secs to change something. It's got an ISO wheel with a function wheel stacked on top, plusand an aperture/shutter speed wheel with 0 and up to 2 stops on either side of the meter's reading. While I like my SX40 allot, I find myself using this little guy the most. When your in a situation where a DSLR brings attention, no one looks twice at someone with a little compact.

I've got two Nikon digital cameras, a compact point and shoot that the wife uses and a high end SLR with a couple of lens. Both have hard to understand and navigate menus. Both have automatic settings that take decent pictures most of the time. It takes a lot effort to understand how to use all the non automatic settings. In my opinion unless you have a serious interest in photography or have a special need, you should first buy a point and shoot. Learn how to use it and more importantly how to edit and store the images on your computer and get them printed both at home and as conventional photo prints. Once you master all these feats and you have a compelling need, get a digital SLR. Without question my Nikon SLR will take superior photos over the point and shoot but that superiority is not needed most of the time.

Helpful web sites are:

For computer photo editing I use Irfanview, a free download that rivals the big dollar name brand software products. Especially useful is the batch processing mode. Highly recommended. Learning curve is substantial. See:

http://www.irfanview.com/

For the digital SLR crowd, Thom Hogan sells user manuals and CD's that cover all the high end cameras. These are much better than the manufacture's owners manuals. Again expect to invest considerable time in learning. My D7000 guide is really only guide and index to the real manual which is on a CD. Thom has many reviews of cameras and camera products on his web site. See:

http://www.bythom.com/

I thought I knew my camera fairly well until I took a two semester course at my local community college on photography. Now I feel I know nothing about photography. To put things in proper perspective I'm the official photographer for my Lions Club and I'm constantly getting, "great photo" type comments.

Yup, these digital cameras have more bells and whistles than I'll ever use. I do most of my shooting in manual mode. I've had or used all the great Nikon 35 mm cameras, sold them for chump change a couple years ago. Nobody wants them anymore I've held onto my Hasselblad medium format camera however,.....just can't part with that even though I never use it anymore. Maybe some day I'll get a digital back for it NOT! ($16,000!) lol! I still have a Motormarine 35mm underwater rig and a Nikonos II. Would love to go digital for underwater adventures but just don't get around to it very often anymore I have been teaching myself Photoshop but think I need to take a class to fully utilize that awesome program.

Carbon12 wrote: I have been teaching myself Photoshop but think I need to take a class to fully utilize that awesome program.

Unless you're being creative or need some heavy duty features most things the average person would want to do can be done with Irfanview which Yanche mentioned . It's not really an editor but a utility program. I'd be willing to bet every professional has a copy installed.

I've not tried the Irfanview but I do use Gimp all the time. Gimp is another freebee photoshop type program that is fairly intuitive in it's use.
I agree with Yanche too that most people will never need a DSLR and all the lenses that go with it.
My Canon SX40 has the lens I ever need these days but honestly, the little Canon G11 compact gets more use than any other I own. I leave it set to shoot a Jpeg and a Raw image in its largest size/best resolution (16g card allows me almost 700 of that combo) and edit from there. I use it on manual most of the time too as it's set up with dials on top like a film camera.It's got a couple of presets on the function wheel that you can pre program also. I use one for HDR images on a tripod. It brackets 3 images at whatever exposures you set it for. Makes nice images for the size of it's sensor and as I mentioned, it's quite anonymous in a crowd or on a city street for candids.

SteveZee wrote:I've not tried the Irfanview but I do use Gimp all the time. Gimp is another freebee photoshop type program that is fairly intuitive in it's use.

The two are really not comparable, what you're going to use Irfanview for mostly is batch operations. For example you can select whole folder and output resized images to another with just a few clicks.

Richard S. wrote:

SteveZee wrote:I've not tried the Irfanview but I do use Gimp all the time. Gimp is another freebee photoshop type program that is fairly intuitive in it's use.

The two are really not comparable, what you're going to use Irfanview for mostly is batch operations. For example you can select whole folder and output resized images to another with just a few clicks.

I see (photo pun intended Richard. I'll have a look at it. I've been playing around with Photomatix Pro3 lately. It's pretty cool for doing those HDR style images. Easy to go overboard though. Ever since i started to play around with it, I now spot it's use all over the place on other images. Less is definitely more. Used subtley, it can be quite striking. A little too much and it becomes unnatural.

I was just checking that out Richard. Pretty cool with allot of features. I'm just getting used to Canon's browser that came with the cameras. Not crazy about it but it's early days using it too so, we'll see.