Obsession #1 continued: Digital SLR evaluation, continued

OK, this tiresome post will continue - skip it if you are not really into these things.

To reiterate, four cameras very worth considering. All have received very good reviews.

The first step, to contain the obsession, is to drop the field to two contenders. To do this, I used two techniques.

The first was to compare the camera features and performance against my requirements. The dropped only one camera - the Sony DSLR-A100. Although I would love to think of myself as some great, famous photographer climbing mountains in the west taking pictures, the truth is, that I end up taking as many pictures indoors and at parties than anything else. Compared with the other three cameras, the Sony, while perhaps giving the "best value for the dollar", fell short in ISO 800 and 1600 performance. The lens relief with me wearing glasses also cut off the edges of the viewfinder.

This got me down to three cameras. Time to apply another technique:

How? Well, I applied one of my lessons learned over the years - "if you are going to use and keep something for a number of years, don't sweat minor or even moderate differences in initial cost. When amortized over the useful life of the product, even hundreds of dollars (over 10 years +) make very little difference in the end. Buy what meets your real and psychological needs".

I really feel this is good advice, at least if you are not really short of money (in which case you immediately buy the Canon or Sony - you win either way).

It was hard to let go (because initially this had been my #1 choice, and, as it often happens, the camera that got me into this market, along with my price expectations) - but this dropped out the Canon XTi.

The Canon is a great camera, and a fantastic value. It's image quality is essentially tied for first place. However, it has several small drawbacks that I think would have bugged me at some low level once I had seen the Nikon (and the Pentax, which I have not yet touched). First is the viewfinder. The Canon viewfinder image, which uses a pentamirror instead of a pentaprism, is visibly smaller and a tad darker than the Nikon and (I am told) Pentax. The camera is also a bit on the small side for my hands, compared with the Nikon. These are still fairly minor nits, however - but there nevertheless.

Finally, lens choices for the Canon vs. the Nikon lean a bit away from the Canon. Both manufacturers have image stabilized lenses (see future post on this) that cover wide angle to telephoto. And both have ultrasonic focusing inside the lens. However, with comparable image quality, the Canon requires two lenses for this, while Nikon makes a single lens (if one can get a hold of one) that covers the full range, with similar max aperture and quality. In the portability realm, this could actually make a significant difference.

This puts Canon in the #3 position.

Then there is the Pentax. I have not yet got to touch this camera. The reviews, though not perfect, have many positive things to say about it. It has built-in image stabilization, which is a plus, even if it may under perform the Canon and Nikon in-lens stabilization by a bit. At the moment, it really is not a contender, although this could change in the future.

Why? Lenses. Once again, I return to a SLR principal - "Make sure you consider the lenses at least as much as the camera. The camera just records the image. The lens makes the image."

As I write this, Pentax does not have any lenses with the quiet, fast internal focusing based on ultrasonic motors. Instead, a motor inside of the camera body turns the focusing mechanism. This is a bit slower and noisier. In addition, the newer Pentax lenses tend more toward the professional market, with none being particularly "wide range" lenses. At best, the zoom range of these lenses is a bit less than Canon's, and no where near the Nikon 18-200 mm "miracle lens". Pentax will introduce several in 2007, but they are also going to be full weatherproof, and I expect not very cheap. Especially since I will eventually need 2.

This leaves the Nikon D80. This will get its own post, but for now the biggest problem is availability of the lens, and cost of the overall system. If we can overcome these, I think we have the right long-term solution for me.

Obsession #1 - Digital SLR selection

Well, I think others would judge this to be my #1 obsession, so I will start here.

It is a particularly good candidate in the obsession category, because I seem to be stuck in an endless loop - market research SLRs, visit the same web pages over an over again, check prices, do nothing, repeat the entire cycle.

Part of it is that there is no good solution with works for me right now, and I am not in a real hurry, and part of it is that now that I am used to checking these things out, I don't know how to stop.

Here is how it started. In the beginning, many, many years ago, digital photography started to be used by real people. But film was still better. Then, around 2002, after watching patiently for years, I finally determined that the high-end point and shoot market was mature enough - that in this area it did everything better than film point and shoots. So I finally bought a Canon G3.

This turned out to be a great decision. Almost 5 years later (they are now on the Canon G8!) my G3 still does a great job, and it has literally revived photography for me - changed it completely. So, even if my camera which cost $850 5 years ago is now about $200+ on the used market, it still solves most of my day-to-day photography needs.

During this period, digital SLRs were just a niche market at the low end, or WAY too expensive at the high end. Simply put, the SLR market was not ready yet for me - anything I bought I figured I would need to replace in several years because something better would come out. So I waited.

Meanwhile I continued to use the point and shoot (a rather nice one at that). I am amazed at how much of the normal SLR things I could do with it (and some things I could not do with an SLR). But, I still longed for my SLR, which I have not used since getting the G3. With time, I knew that I would end up with another camera.

About 3 years ago, a friend of ours (Yana) bought a Canon Rebel. This was the first viable "consumer SLR" camera. I was impressed by the pictures it took, and it effectively started the clock ticking on the selection of a camera.

The whole SLR scene has almost come together in late 2006, with four dominant SLR models, from four different manufacturers each offering a fantastic feature set - and one with which one could live for many years without buying a new camera. These are:

• Canon XTi - http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos400d/ - this is a 10 MP successor to the Canon Rebel line. Great price, possibly the best image quality sensor wise, and a good feature set. Not perfect in several areas, but very good indeed.
• Nikon G80 - http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond80/ - to me this very closely approaches a perfect SLR, with great ergonomics. It is my front-runner at the time. Nikon also has one of the most desired lenses on the market - a 18 to 200 mm zoom (!!!) that is actually very good. There are some issues (see a later post), but none are with the camera itself. Frankly, if I could get the len I wanted now for the list price, I may have already bought it. But everyone wants this lens, and it is either back ordered for 4 months (at the list price), or sold in-stock at $300+ above list. So the package at this time is out of my price range or not available. Hence temporary paralysis.
• Sony DLSR-A100 - http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra100/ - very interesting camera indeed, and probably by many standards the deal of the year. Image stabilization built in, good lenses, and a very low price for what you get. For the market they are reaching for, a best buy, it seems. I think they are a little off my market, however, because first of all, I don't yet trust their ability to make an SLR, and some of the features are a bit, well, Sony-like. And I have not forgiven them for using a proprietary SONY flash hot-shoe. Very Sony. But for many, take a serious look at this late-comer to the party.
• Pentax K10D - http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk10d/- this WAS my leading contender a bit back, and is now in second place. It got dinged in its review on JPEG image quality, but this can be fixed in a future software upgrade, which they will probably do some day. It also has in-camera image stabilization, and very good Pentax lenses. But lenses when you look at the details are the problem here. To make a long story short, they don't have (yet) any wide-range lenses that are also ultrasonic motor focusing yet. Pentax will introduce them in "2007 and beyond", but I am worried about the price.

Well, that's enough for starters - I will continue this in a future entry.

Winter, finally

Well, the last 3 days have proven that winter is not going to pass us by entirely. It is now the end of January, and sure enough, it even feels like it. High temperatures around -8, and lows around -16 (Celsius). And about 15 cm of fluffy snow. Maybe this weekend skiing will be possible!

Nina is going through mid-term exam week, and still seems to be alive, although at times we may have to change that to be "barely alive". Gwendolyn is keeping herself quite busy even without classes at the moment. I am I pursuing my various obsessions. I think rather than corrupt this post with them, I will write separate entries for them.

Evil things to do to your roommate!

I was talking with a female co-worker of mine, and somehow the discussion of evil things to do to people came up. Much to my surprise, said person (whose name is being withheld to protect the guilty) did indeed have an evil past! Here are two of her dirty deeds (as opposed to "the" dirty deed - an entirely different thing....):

Story 1:

She and her roommate had bunk beds, one on top of another. Her roomie's is on top. One night she made sure she was not seen arriving home when her roommate got ready for bed. But she watched from afar. Knowing her roommates routine, she waited until said roomie crossed the hall to the bathroom for that final bathroom stop. After the door closed, she quickly went into the room, crawled into the top bunk, and buried herself completely in the covers. And waited. And waited... Finally, roomie comes in, sleepily climbs the ladder, and starts to climb into bed..... and .... suddently out pops my coworker, arms agape, yelling "Ahhhhh!!!!". As it happens these arms than had to GRAB the roomie, who was starting to fall down the ladder. (Apparently they are still good friends)

Story 2:

This is a real treat! Different victim (not her roomie but rather a suitemate). This joke turned out a bit better than planned, as it happens. Here is the setup - in the suite bathroom. Victim showering in the next stall. She had been in there a while. My brave co-worker takes a packet of cherry crystal light powder (a diet drink mix - essentially powdered red dye), and throws a handful over the top of the curtain. And runs.

Well, here is what she did NOT know when she did this. Her suitemate was apparently shaving at the time, with shaving cream here and there, sharp blade in hand, against skin.

Heard while running out of the door: Oh my god - I'm bleeding!!!!

Evil, very evil!

Three cool web sites to spend your money on....

http://www.sciplus.com/ - just cool science things. Very amusing text
http://www.widgetsupply.com/ - best gadgets and hobby tool site around!
http://www.firefox-fx.com/ - firework and rocketry site. One of the few sites still selling chemicals, so probably an FBI front :-) Buy your oxidizing agents while they are still legal! :-)

I doubt I can exactly blame president Bush, but...

It is really warm today. All week it has been at least 8 degrees, and now it is a balmy 13 degrees (56 degrees F)!!! And what am I doing? Sitting in the basement of my building and working!

Oh well, no complaints, at least when its this warm. I think the immediate blame is now formally attributed to El Nino. But for that I will try blaming Bush!

It is amazing on how busy things are. A full week of Christmas vacation has gone by, and I did not even find time to write in this blog. Wow! In the meanwhile, check out our photo site. At least there are some pictures of what we did. If I get a chance (no promised today) I will try to "bloggify" it here.

Finally, my toilet entry for the month (some readers have been telling me I am obsessed by toilets, based on several previous posts). The only thing we have are clogged and overflowing toilets here at home now and then. And that is not that funny...