I’ve never really stopped taking pictures. Ask my family. I’ve been taking pictures since I was a young lad and my dad bought me a Russian 35mm camera and a full darkroom! I know I have some of my early work somewhere in boxes. I think I should bring them out and start scanning them for posterity.
The hobby further strengthened itself during college and my time in the UK. Ask Frances, she got dragged the length and breadth of the UK on weekends to take pictures, and of course dragged to photography shops in every city and town we visit. It became a ritual – and she got to hate it, but didn’t complain too much.
I was looking through the hundreds of slides I have taken at that time when we moved house, and I am itching to scan them somehow. I’ve got a friend who promised to loan me one of their Nikon slide scanners, when that happens I’ll put some of them up, or at least archive them in a digital media so that they will be safe from the vagaries of bad storage.
Unfortunately I stopped taking “real” pictures since I came back from college because of time available and expense. I still dabbled, but I got bored with it. Shoot, develop and then just store.
I couldn’t believe myself when I saw that Canon IXUS at the Amsterdam Duty Free about 3 years ago, that’s when the bug hit back in earnest. But, it’s just a snapper not a “real” camera. Still. I didn’t mind. The resolution was decent enough and it took away two whole mundane steps in the process: no need to develop film and print copies, nor is there any requirement for the storage to take any physical shape. It was digital. Hence, as long as I am sensible in archiving the material in different locations (disks, optical and magnetic) then they should last for a while. Now with the price of DVD media so low, I can have a third viable alternative to long term storage. The fact that hard disks are so large and cheap now as well adds to the urge to just go out and shoot with the highest resolution possible, which I do with my Canon IXUS 400.
Then came Flickr. Since October 28th till now I have uploaded 676 pictures, most of which are original! I have also been hankering for a good mobile phone with good camera resolution so that I can continue to just snap. And that’s coming up soon. I’m going to get the Nokia 6630 as soon as it’s on the shelf.
Apart from that, there is no escaping it, I have to get a “decent” digital camera with a 35mm changeable lenses because I want to get back in the game. I want to take good quality pictures.
That thought came up to me this morning while walking the dogs. And the following scene in particular ate me up for not having a good camera to take the shot when I know that the atmosphere, the setting and the calmness of the sea will never happen again, not like this anyway:
Therefore, on my shopping list now is the Canon EOS 10D, unless you can recommend another? I have been disconnected from the prosumer end of photography for some time, so I would value your opinion.
Other than that, I’ve still got my trusty old Nikon F3 and the Bronica GS1 lying in wait in the cupboard… but I’m thinking of selling those and just concentrating on digital photography… oh hang on a minute, is there a digital back for the F3?
Comments
Damn flickr
hey mahmood,
buying a good gal-friend of mine a digital camera for christmas. but i’m not sure what to get. i’m looking for something slim (fits purse) but with a decent # of megapixels and high resolution. nothing too fancy or too expensive. any suggestions? figured you might have some..
thanks, nomadicarab
Re: Damn flickr
As I don’t know your budget I can’t advise. But I am very happy with my Canon IXUS 400. I know that they have newer and slimmer versions of that so maybe you can look into those?
Damn flickr
Know what yo mean Mahmood. Yet I still keep it real. I got my Minolta X570 and my dads Canon F1. I love those old cameras I I have a digital Nikon 995 which is great for what I use it for. Yet my real joy in picture taking is the F1 and the X570. I been doing slides and just having them scanned when I get them developed. I have other 15 rolls of b/w that I NEED to get developed just been a lazy ass and not made time for them.
My friend just picked up the Nikon D70 very very nice camera, it its digital but has some nice manual features. Thought I am not comfy using it. The technology in it just too much for me. So check that one out.
And if you want to get rid of that F3 I think I can find a nice home for it ,)
.nibaq
Nikon D70
I bought a Nikon D70 digital SLR and am very happy with it. I had a Nikon CoolPix 900, which worked fine and made good photos for viewing on computer and the Internet, but I noticed my pix looked a little muddy when I printed them. The D70 has 6 MP sized pix, which usually come out around 2.3 MP, and print with the same quality as film photos. I got a 1 Gb memory for about $300 six months ago, but you can buy 4 Gb for less than that now.
You can buy the camera frame or the frame and lens. My recommendation, if you’re willing to spend the cash, is to get just the frame and separately buy a Nikkor 28-200mm f3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF Zoom Lens, which is what I got. It’s a good, small, but powerful all-around lens that can give you coverage of close up subjects but also pulls in objects at medium range. The D70 will also use any autofocus (AF) lens that works on a Nikon camera.
I’ve also got fisheye and big telephoto lenses but I rarely use them. The Nikkor lens does it all. The fisheye lens is only really good for group photos. The telephoto lens is only really good for air shows and such. At that magnification, the natural tremors in your hand shake the lens a lot. You really need a unipod to bear the weight of the lens so that you can be steady enough to frame the shot properly. Otherwise, a distant plane will be jumping around too much to center it. It might be good for those car races in Bahrain.
With a gig memory, the indicator says you have 289 photos to shoot, but you actually can take nearly 400. If I work hard I can take perhaps a hundred photos in a day. The D70 comes with a rechargeable lithium ion battery. I’ve taken the camera on a nine day trip where it never ran out of juice and had just enough photos. That’s good. The weak point of taking digital cameras on trips is that you run out of memory, unlike film cameras where you just buy more film as you go. If you get the 4 Gb, you may be able to go for a two week trip without recharging.
The flash on the D70 is adequate for subjects a body length away but there are two Nikon flashes dedicated to the D70 which will give you better pix. The SB600 flash gives you good light out to 30 feet, the SB800 out to 45 or more. I got the SB600, $200, and am very pleased with it. The D70 and SB600 talk to each other and automatically compute the right amount of light for the distance to the subject so that you rarely bleach out a close subject or black out a far subject. The SB800 looks freakishly better but it costs $350.
The bottom line is that this whole setup does much of the thinking for you so that you can focus on the composition of your photos. However, this whole setup costs a couple bucks and is not handy to carry around casually. Also, now that cameras and lenses are made out of plastic rather than cast iron like they used to be, they break easier, as I have discovered.
Examples of my D70 photos can be seen at Steve’s Wild Ride for those so inclined.
Steve
Damn flickr
InstaPundit has expounded at some length on the Nikon D70 and several other digital cameras.
Damn flickr
You’re flicker account isn’t full yet? Have you tried Photoshop yet? It comes at a hefty price, but you can just enhance your photos or manipulate the heck out of them. I bet you could get pretty creative with it’s features. I love the beach photos.
Re: Damn flickr
Not yet, but trying!
I know and have used Photoshop but found that it’s too much for my simple use. I opted for the Adobe Photoshop Album and Elements which do my photo organising and simple retouching.
I must confess however that I hate retouching photos, I would retouch to correct colour balance and brightness, but not go beyond that. It just feels to me like cheating!
Re: Damn flickr
I understand the D2X and D2H are built more sturdily to stand up to rougher use. I’ve never touched one, so I can’t say from experience.
Steve
Re: Damn flickr
Thank you very much indeed for your advice. I could have gone out and ordered the 10D and wouldn’t have known that there was a replacement! My cursory research of the last few days did not uncover the 20D and reading the review, it does look the thing to get for my purposes.
I’ll have a look at the other links you provided. Thanks again for those.
As I have a bunch of Nikor, Nikon and Vivitar lenses for the F3, do you happen to know if they would fit on a digital Nikon? I would hate to get rid of them! (I know I’m asking for much, and they are probably way old for a digital camera.)
Damn flickr
Hey Mahmood,
I’m a professional photographer (I shoot mainly music photos) who also works in a big photo supply house here in L.A., so I think MAYBE I can help you out. 🙂 Steve is right, the Nikon D70 is a very good camera for the money…I wouldn’t call it a professional-quality camera like their D2X or D2H models, but it does take very, very good pictures. However, if your heart was (is?) set on the Canon 10D, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is, the 10D was discontinued by Canon recently. The good news: they replaced it with the new Canon 20D! If you’re interested in the specs, here is a very good online review:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos20d/
And, if you want to learn a little more about different digital cameras (as well as film), feel free to visit my company’s web site:
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_main.php
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_main.php?cat_id=1700
The second link is to the Digital section of the site. Hope you find this useful.
Damn flickr
Hi!
Mahmood i would recomend going down the Canon Line i.e. EOS 20D. some time ago i also decided to go for canon rather than nikon[Canon 300D, my purse ain’t big like urs], when i was making my first purchase in DSLR. I am very happy. Why?
well look here, canon have got the following line up of professional DSLRs incase you wish to upgrade:
starting from 300D
20D
1D
1Ds
1D Mark2
1DsMark2
on the other hand nikon has only got one decent camera D70, D100 is now old and can’t compete. Nikon hasn’t got any competing product for 20D. Their top range Nikon DSLRs are way too old and no new replacement is available, till this time nikon has not got any competing product for 1D Mark2 let alone 1DsMark2.
However Fuji makes DSLRs which are of a better range and take on Nikon lenses, but I would like to stick with one company which has better lineup of stuff. Also another argument you will see is that photos from Nikon require less post processing, that is true. However that is not a disadvantage on the canon side.
I would recommend that you visit the webstie http://www.fredmiranda.com and see for yourself what these cameras (nikon and canon) can do.
Although you would already know this, but just to say it again, glass matters more than the body, body should be the cheapest thing you buy.
please do let me know what camera you end up going with.
Re: Damn flickr
Thank you for your advice. I am most definitely leaning towards the 20D. Although I have been a long time Nikon user, I recognise that they don’t have much to compete with Canon’s range (according to my cursory research anyway) and as I have been using the Canon IXUS and IXUS 400, I have been pretty happy with both. Not much to compare with an SLR of course, but I got the comfort factor.
Now that decision has been made, any recommendation where to buy it from online? (or if someone can confirm the price and availability in Dubai I can do a day-trip and pick it up from there!)
Thanks!
Re(1): Damn flickr
My AF lenses which I used on my Nikon film camera worked on my Nikon D70 digital.
Steve
Re(1): Damn flickr
I have a friend who insanely buys and sells his cameras all the time. He swears by B&H:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=catalog.jsp&A=getpage&Q=RootPage.jsp
I’m leery about buying a camera online myself. A coworker bought a D70 online for the cheapest price but it looks like its grey market, no warranty. I’ve heard horror stories. It appears the scam among the disreputable dealers is to sell you the body cheap and then pressure you to buy overpriced accessories. Some of those accessories may be stuff, like the recharger and battery, that come with the body.
Steve