Don’t forget to visit my renter, the Foo, his blog is totally sweet!
I bought a camera! Nikon D50 dSLR. Not the one I was actually going to buy on the weekend, the Canon EOS 350D. I popped into the shops yesterday after doing a bit of a phone around to see who had what cameras in store for me to fondle. No one near me had the Canon, but they did have the Nikon D50 and D70 so I looked at them.
The D50 was cheaper than the Canon, okay so it has fewer mega-pixels but in the grand scheme of things it’s not that much. When comparing the two 8MP did sound a lot more than 6 but in reality the difference is that one large, high resolution image at 8MP has the dimensions 3456×2304, at 6MP it’s 3008×2000. I’m sure that’s important to someone but not important enough to me for that to be the sole deciding factor. When the 350D gets replaced by the 400D in a couple of weeks then the difference will be large as the new one has 10MP, as does the new Nikon D80 that, from my understanding, is replacing the D70.
So I bought the D50! 😀 It’s very exciting although I’ll be a lot more excited when I get to have more of a play with it. At present I’m reading through the manual; I had to wait for the battery to charge overnight before I could even start it up. I had a small play in full auto mode for about a minute this morning. I set the time and the date. Formatted the memory card, they recommend that you do that. I can’t wait to try out each different mode and change all the settings and familiarise myself with my new toy/baby. I have the standard 18-55mm Nikon lens that came with it. I’m hoping to buy a 300mm Tamron lens soon. The shop has quite a lot of them at the moment so they’re a good price, I’ll end up paying about the same as for the Canon twin lens kit. I also need to buy a bag so that I can carry it around without fear of damage. Anyone know wear I can get a good deal on a camera bag?
I picked up my old Nikon the other night and discovered the auto-focus doesn’t work 🙁 I don’t know if it’s the lens or the camera, I’m yet to have a play and make sure the connections are all connecting properly. I hope it’s not broken, I can always just use it without auto-focus, I usually do anyway but I hope the lens is okay because it should be compatible with my new camera, unless it’s broked.
The Foo says
Wow that is a sweet looking camera! I checked it up on the net. The Canon is pretty nice too. how much different in price was it over there?
I currently have the Canon PowerShot S2 IS and the reason I settled on it is because it took digital video (with sound) as well. I won’t consider mine a “true” SLR but close to it. My wife’s point and shoot Olympus just died too so I’ll be on the look out for a nice small camera for her the future. I think between 6 vs. 8 Mpixels, it doesn’t really matter unless you are really blowing up and printing large pictures. It won’t matter to me as I won’t print more than a 5×7 which a 5 mpixel is more than sufficient. However, prices are dropping real fast that you can get an 8 MP for what you used to pay for a 5 – the product of rapid technology! Do take some nice pictures to show.
kristarella says
Foo – If you want a new small digital camera, we’ve found the Canon IXUS series very cool. Hubby got the IXUS 50 for his birthday and it’s great! I was using it for a while for my hobby photography but I started to approach a problem with exposure and timing. The IXUS uses the same menu function to change the amount of light received as it does to change the shutter speed so you can’t adjust them both at the same time. I wanted to try some night photgraphy, I also like macro a lot and I don’t like to use the flash due to glare but if it’s too dark I can’t adjust exposure… and so I here I am. Can’t wait to play with all the features!!!
The Foo says
Thanks, have to check the Canon IXUS out – all my wife needs is a good point and click. I really have to play around with the shutter speeds and exposures as I don’t think I am using my camera to full capability. I may buy a photography book this weekend.