Cameras

Now, I'm not really a camera buff, in that I don't know the ins and outs of every camera on the market, so with that in mind, this is not a discussion on why I'm using one camera over another or what's the best camera in the world (though from what I hear the new Canon EOS 5D mkII is going to be something -take a look at the video shot by Vincent Laforet with this camera). I wanted to tell you what I'm using, partly because it's interesting to know what photos are taken with what cameras, but also to show people that even with a cheap camera you can take some good photos if you take your time.

So here's what I'm using these days:

This is my newest camera, a Nikon D200. It's my first DSLR and so most of this last year I've been figuring it out and growing into it. I picked this up at Henry's Outlet in Toronto for about $1,300 which included the body (and things that come with it), lens (Nikkor 18-70mm), polarizer, memory and a bag. All in all, I think I did OK, but of course, being almost a year later, it probably looks like I got a bad deal. Ah, digital life. This was the most I've spent on any one thing next to my computer, which was just a little more than this. Afterward I had this overwhelming feeling of guilt. Fortunately that has passed and I like my new (to me) camera. One of the cool things about it, is that it will take old lenses, so I've got a 70-300mm Sigma zoom which was made for an older Nikon AF film camera. I also picked up a 50mm prime lens that goes down to an f-stop of 1.8, which is much lower than the 3.5 I get on the lens I picked up with the camera. I like the fact that's all manual and that I picked it up for about $25. When you're on a student budget, it's a big deal. It looks a little funny when this small lens is mounted on a big body. I'll let you draw your own mental picture from that one.


The other SLR I have is an old Yashica FX-3 2000. Seems like a long name when you type it out, but I guess there's an evolutionary reason for it. This is my first SLR camera, which I picked up (also from Henry's) back in 1995 when I took an interest in photographing for my high school's year book. If I remember correctly, I paid about $280 for it used. Those days were pretty fun. Since then I've got a lot of use out of this camera. I picked up the Tamron 80-210 zoom about a year later, which came in handy for sports and other things that I couldn't get close to. When I started shooting some landscape scenes last year I popped into Henry's outlet and got a nice little Sigma wide angle 28mm for about $20. All in all, this has been a great camera for me aside from the advancing arm getting a little busted (probably from the previous owner, because it's never had that problem since getting fixed 12 years ago). Very durable and good for learning on due to it's simplicity. I would recommend anyone who wants to learn about making photos to get into a camera that has a lot of manual controls or make use of the manual capabilities that their camera has (that they might not even know about).

This one is my little take everywhere do anything point and shoot Canon PS A520. It's actually a replacement for the A60 I bought at Futureshop in 2003 for way more than it's worth now -I think I paid about $300 for the thing and to think of what $300 could buy now... The A60 just kinda died one day and so I took it back and with the product service plan I had, ended up getting an upgraded version, because Canon stopped making the A60. It's nice to have a camera that's compact and relatively inexpensive to carry around because the only thing I'd feel bad about losing the camera is the lost photos on the memory card. Toshina has taken over using the camera (mostly because I am gently prodding her to learn how to use a camera and take pictures) and I find that I occasionally think of getting a new PS camera for those moments when I say "I wish I had a camera". The one thing I dislike about the A520 is that it only takes 2 'AA' batteries. Some of you might say, "well, that's good, because it's cheaper to operate". The problem with this is that whenever the flash fires, the camera takes a good 10-20 sec. to recharge the flash for another shot. The A60 never had this problem, because it used 4 batteries and since I use rechargeable batteries, I have no problems with that.

Earlier I was talking about learning about making photos and using manual settings. This camera (and the A60) have a lot of manually controllable features, which I have seen missing on other more contemporary cameras. So if you're one of those who are looking into getting a camera with the intention of learning and not just taking pictures, then more manual settings is something that should be on your list, besides mega-pixels. The cool thing about digital is that you can play with settings and immediately see what impact they have on the image you produce.

2 cool things to try with a digital camera:

• Look at a remote control with your camera and push some buttons.
• Take a photo of your stove with the lights off and cycle through various lighting settings (ie. day light, fluorescent, cloudy, etc.)

I'm thinking that in writing this here, I will try to keep up with a new post and some photos on a weekly basis and try to have a regular day for that (who knows with my schedule), just in case you're interested in following along. You can also get an email about a new post put up here by fooling around with the follow link up in the top right of the page.