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.