The other players

OK, now that I've gotten through the whole Nikon line-up as related to getting into the DSLR game, let me address the other players in this field.


First of all, there's the arch-rival; Canon. Canon is basically just like Nikon, in that it is also highly successful in the market place, has a long-standing history in camera making and is large enough to have a wide line-up of models. At this point, it may be somewhat more successful in sales and has a bit of an edge, stemming from a perceived reputation amoung advanced amateurs of higher image quality. Of course, I've already espoused my opinion on the topic that:

1. Actual image quality at the levels that are being discuss isn't enough to measure much less as a deciding factor.
2. In general, the real difference are few and not really worth discussing either.

Which gets us back to which Canon models should be be looked at to fit into our concept of a camera to get started in the hobby. If we use the same criteria as we did before (6 megapixels), then the models will be the Canon EOS Digital Rebel (300D in some markets), EOS 10D, Rebel XT (350D in some markets and has an 8Mp sensor) or maybe the EOS 20D (essentially the same sensor). All 4 of these models fall into the about the same price-point of somewhere between $350 and $450 right now.

The main thing to remember is that in the Canon system, the "Rebel" branding is used in relation to their strictly consumer line and is considered an entry level product. Where this comes to bear is that there are some actual feature which are crippled so that those models can be differentiated from the "x0D" "prosumer" line. From what I can tell, the main issue being that it is much more difficult to over-ride the automation in the Rebels than the number series cameras. Many reviewers who actually shoot with both tend to stick with the Canons for ultimate image quality and the Nikons for speed of "in-the-field" use. To paraphrase one reviewer; I use my Canon when I'm going to have my tripod out and all the time in the world.

As far as glass is concerned, it's a "pick-em" situation. Each has some lenses that are better than the other and some that are worse. It was a no brainer for me since at the time that I made my decision, Canon didn't off an "Image Stabilization" (VR in Nikon speak), 18-200mm super-zoom so I bought Nikon. Now Canon has that same lens. And of course, Canon changed their mount when they went auto-focus, so you don't have the luxury of simply mounting an old lens. Of course Canon does have the advantage of a shorter flange to film-plane distance so you can just get an adapter that's let you mount even Nikon lenses. You do lose ALL automation, but it can be done.

In a nutshell, there's precious little to give between the two brands and it comes down to which you prefer the handling.

Now, on to short descriptions of other possibilities that are out there that I find to be reasonable alternatives to the "big boys".

First of all, there is Olympus. This was the system that I almost bought into instead of the Nikon. The cameras that are most likely to fit the bill are the "E-xxx" series. In the U.S. they began with the E-410/510/420/520, all with essentially the same 10Mp sensor. Their professional/semi-professional unit E-3 has a similar sensor as well. These (especially the E-4/510) will sometimes fall into that $350-450 range as well, however, they don't sell as many units as Canon/Nikon so there won't be as many that appear on the used market. At the same time, it must be said also that they don't tend to sell as well for various reasons so the price is usually somewhat lower than a similarly spec'd Canon/Nikon model.

There are two very seductive features (at least for me) on these Olympus', the first being that they have sensor self-cleaning system built-in and 2nd being very traditionally Olympus that they are significantly more compact than either the Nikon or Canon. One feature that many people like is the "Sensor Shift" technology which is what Olympus calls their version of IS/VR. The kicker here is that theirs is built into the body of the camera so ALL lenses get the benefit of it. So, what's not to like!?! Actually among the engineering community, it's a little controversial (note that neither Canon or Nikon chose this route). The issue is that it's another electronically controlled, highly sensitive, moving part that central to the actual camera vs. in the lens, so therefore, if it fails, you're "dead", where-as, on a lens-centric system, you switch lenses and continue to shoot (without that lens, but hey...). I think the differences is that both Canon and Nikon have a LARGE population of professionals to think about who can't afford to have their camera fail. From my standpoint, it's really a bigger problem for an amateur since most of us don't have an extra $500-1000 camera body sitting around in case one fails!

And of course, another difference is that Olympus uses the four/thirds sensor size which is physically smaller so their conversion factor in lens focal length is 2x, instead of the ~1.5x of Nikon/Canon. This is a non-issue with the exception that there are less wide-angle options to work with.

I'll address one other manufacturer today and that's Pentax. Much like Olympus, it's an old-line and well-thought-of Japanese company who has a lot of history and although don't sell a lot of units and don't do a lot with professional is considered every bit the equal of Canon or Nikon in the consumer field. Their offering in the range that we've been discussing is the *ist DS" or K100D cameras. Their models are excellent and quite often winning international awards. Their lenses are outstanding and pretty much the equal of Canon, Nikon or Olympus....so what the issue? They are a dickens to find!

Pentax just doesn't sell that many units, in fact, their Korean partner (Samsung) is rapidly catching up to them. A big plus for them is that they can use all of the old (even pre-auto focus) lenses back to the first K-Mounts. I strongly considered them when I switched to digital since I had 12 K-Mount lenses at the time, but I was determined to down-size BECAUSE I didn't want to carry all those lenses around.

So, I've touched on Canon which in my eyes is pretty much a personal taste issue between them and Nikon. And then there were the two "also rans"; so what other factors are there other than they are hard to find? A big one for me is that, since they are small (relatively speaking), many independents (such as Tamron, Sigma, Tokina, etc.) don't make products for them. In my world, this translates to mean that there are less options which translates to mean higher prices.

The Weird and the Wonderous!

So....if I didn't live in Texas, how quickly would I be staring at a police officer, if I just took this thing out in public and started using it!?!


Anyway, I bought a BushHawk (which is what this contraption is) from Craig's List a few weeks ago. Last week, I finally got around to ordering the adapter plate which would allow me to attach my big lens (Tokina 80-400mm) to it. Why? A number of reasons, but at the core of it; is this thing cool looking or what? It's not quite as interesting at this point as my inspiration, which was a camera called the Fotosniper (their word, not mine), which they develop probably some time in the 40's and then after several generations, and Glasnost, etc. began to appear in increasing numbers in the U.S. circa. 1980's. This thing is far more modern, but not quite as cool if you take into account the really interesting case, etc. that they came packaged in.


Pretty interesting little camera huh? Makes mine look positively civilized. I still want one of these things some day, just not right now. Especially since it was a good package day since I came home to find, the aforementioned adapter plate for the BushHawk, but also the new Manfrotto 804RC2 head which will allow me to use the repaired tripod, a package from my buddy Kym containing some of his surplus lenses that I can use and the perfectly timed replacement anniversary present for my wife since today is....TA-DA, our 10th anniversary!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that this particular BushHawk had supposedly belonged to noted photographer Franz Lanting who shoots for National Geographic, among other publications!

The "Process" of Buying

Where I left off last time was a discussion of the major players in the market and my personal needs as well as quirks (in relation to camera equipment that is). So lets review the specific parameters first:

• At least 6 megapixel sensor
• A system camera meaning one of the "Big Boys" (eg. Canon, Nikon, Sony...maybe Olympus or Pentax)
• Some sort of camera motion compensation
• $1000 budget- "All In"

Every company has produced at least one model with a 6Mp sensor, so that part was really a non-factor, it's just whether I could get that model into my budget would be the issue. At point, I'll dive into the vagaries of product line and differentiation a little bit so you can understand what's out there.

In the DSLR (as in the film SLR before it) world, there are 2 basic types of cameras; Professional and Consumer. Now understand that this doesn't mean that they won't sell you the camera if you don't make a living with it, but a designation of what it's designed to do. In fact, for those of us on a budget, we LOVE those well-heeled consumers who over-buy for their needs, under-utilize the equipment, and ultimately sell of at a ridiculously low price later when they upgrade to the latest and greatest. There is also a quasi-middle-ground that's sometimes called "prosumer" or "semi-professional". And then of course, within each group there is some stratification of products as well. From here, I'll use Nikon as my examples as it's the brand that I own and therefore know the best.

• Professional- In the Nikon line, this equipment is designated by a single digit such as 1, 2 or 3. This number is preceded by a letter designating either F (I guess for "film) or D (for digital). Of course, the D1 was their first completely "in-house" digital camera, followed by the D2 and the current model being the D3. These model numbers can also be modified as interim improvements are made (eg. D3s) or sub-models that do something differently or more, such as the D2hs for the improved and "high speed" D2. These things are "beasts"! They physically are made to the size of the old professional film SLRs with the motor drives attached. They are typically not good candidates for the typical amateur to use (especially beginners). They tend to be extremely intimidating with a ton of buttons, but they also leave out some things like a "pop-up" flash since it's assumed that the user will have a full-blown dedicated lighting rig to use. The big boys have some of these that sport the full-sized (meaning the same size as a 35mm film frame) sensor that Nikon calls FX. Barring getting into a full-blown Hassellblad, these are the biggest sensors that you can buy which are around 24 megapixels! So you'll HAVE to have these huge and expensive 32Gb storage cards just to hold the files. Oh, and you have to have lenses that cover the bigger sensor format as well, which are also more expensive. So again; not recommended for the regular person just wanting to take nice digital pictures!
• Pro-sumer or Semi-Professional- These are the middle-ground of DSLR cameras. In a nutshell, they are really cut down professional cameras, made like professional cameras, but are easier to use like the amateur models....they're even about the same size, but typically somewhat heavier. They tend to be heavier due to the build philosophy, beginning with metal chassis (usually magnesium), environmental sealing, and heavier duty components, since their expected number of shutter actuations is at least 50% if not 100% higher than the typical consumer camera. They also tend to leave out many of the full on amateur feature like "scene" modes that the Japanese manufacturers believe most amateurs need. On the flip side, they give FAR great control over the cameras various functions. These cameras can generally (when outfitted with the correct pieces) make perfectly adequate substitutes for full-on professional models. In fact many of the practicing professional will use these as "back-up" bodies or when they need something lighter and smaller than the beasts that they normally use. In Nikon's line, these models were given a 3 digit model number beginning with 100, so the progression so far has been; D100, D200, D300 (currently the newest being the D300s which has video capture onboard). They've progressed from 6Mp, to 10Mp, to 12Mp which is typical of the most companies.
  
• Consumer- For the Nikon line, these were originally given 2 digit model numbers beginning with the D70, after which the line split into 2 levels with the advanced amateur cameras going up to the D80, then D90 (current) and the "entry" level cameras going down with the D50, then D40 followed by the D40x. As you can see, they've pretty much run out of numbers here so they've moved on to the 4 digit numbers with the current entry-level camera being the D3000 and the more "full-featured" version with video as the D5000. With that out of the way, here's the meat of what these cameras are and do (IMHO). They are less expensive to produce since they leave out some features as well as build differences such as full on polycarbonate chassis vs. magnesium. Although many will have some sort of metal sub-structure that keeps the critical components such as lens mount, mirror box, pentaprism, and senor in rigid alignment with each other. They will also have a lower level of sensor, but more than enough to do the job. This is by far the fastest growth segment in the digital camera market and as a result THE most competitive. Therefore, the various manufacturers can't be perceived as having an inferior product feature-wise since the typical consumer in this market segment knows a great deal less about the actual intricacies of photography and usually make buying decisions based on features and perceived quality. One other trend that has developed in this segment is the movement toward a smaller, lighter weight and easier to carry camera. The Olympus led consortium got the ball started with the four/thirds sensor standard which allowed both a smaller camera (smaller senor), which also allowed a much shallower lens flange to sensor plane distance. Nikon quickly jumped onto this trend, by switching to the SD memory card and eliminating the focusing motor from their lower-end cameras (beginning with the D50 and then on to the HIGHLY successful D40, D40x, and D60 series) which cost them the ability to use legacy auto-focus lenses from the film-AF days, but allowed a MUCH smaller lighter body. I suspect that their research indicated that the typical purchaser of these cameras were not the old guard that was highly invested in their system from the "old days" and didn't have a bunch of lenses that demanded compatibility. Apparently they were right on the mark since the D40 became so ubiquitous that Wal-Mart and Target sold them....and we all know that those retailers only deal in items of HIGH volume! They set the price as low as they could bear and made up for it by a much higher volume sales and the ongoing purchase of accessories such as lenses, flash, camera bags etc. The same strategy used by inkjet printer manufacturers who all but give you the printer in anticipation of the purchasers having to regularly shell out $40-50 for the cartridges! This segment of the market is populated not only by the big boys, but all the others as well including the Koreans and I suspect some day soon, the Chinese!

I pretty much ferreted out all the above information before I did anything in terms of buying. First I sold the "Super-Zoom" Nikon Coolpix 8800 as quickly as I could so it wouldn't continue to devalue and rapidly did as much market research as possible. Some of my early posts are devoted to this process so I'm not going to repeat it here. My budget dictated that I could run out to Wal-Mart or wherever and buy a Nikon D40 or Canon Rebel XT brand new "off-the-shelf" complete with the "kit lens" which is generally the "normal" zoom (18-55mm which translates to roughly 28-85mm). And my $1000 budget would probably allow me to then buy the other "kit" lens that's sometimes packaged together (55-200mm which translates to be 85-300mm). So, what's not to like? Everything that I wanted and needed in one shot that fit neatly into my budget.

Here's are the problems:

• I wanted it all in 1 lens complete with VR.
• I wanted to be able to eventually use legacy lenses all the way back to manual focus ones.
• Philosophically, I've never liked buying the "bottom-of-the-line" in anything. I'd sooner buy a used car that's built better than a brand new lesser one at the same price. One day, I'll try to motivate myself to write about the economics and the responsibilities aspects of this philosophy. Until then, just chalk it up as one of my quirks!

Here are my solutions:

• According to my research, the Nikon 18-200mm VR lens could be had at around $600, give or take $50 depending on how good/lucky one got on eBay. Since, at this point-in-time, neither Canon or Sony had an equivalent, so the brand decision was made for me. I must come clean though that I was leaning toward Nikon anyway since I just didn't like the way Canons operated or looked, but I would have overcome these personal issues if the lens situation had been the other way around. Because, in photography; it's all about the glass!
• My desire to have the capacity to use legacy lenses only added to my decision. Way back when everyone switched to auto focus in following Minolta's lead Canon made the decision to completely change their lens mount to make manufacturing and future design changes easier. They were in a position to do this since very few professionals used their equipment and this was the group that the manufacturers could least afford to alienate (at that time anyway). How this effects me is that legacy Canon lenses won't mount on the new their DSLRs without an adapter, plus there isn't a vast stock of old weird and wonderful lenses that were designed for them since they weren't the choice of professionals "back in the day". This also led me to want to select not only a Nikon, but one with a focusing motor built-in since that would allow me to use the many older lenses from the early autofocus days that didn't have the built-in focusing motors. Theses are often cheap, because the well-heeled Nikon afficionados turned up their noses at them and the typical consumer either didn't have a camera that was compatible or didn't know that they'd work. The result? Lots of older lenses (particularly from independent manufactures such as Tamron, Sigma and Tokina) that are very inexpensive by comparison. Sure, they are older and tend to focus a little slower, but optically they are quite often comparable to anything produced today and in many cases, built better. I must point out that the advantages tend toward the longer end of the lens spectrum since those lenses were designed during the 35mm days and with the 1.5 (or 1.6 for Canon) multiplication factor, the wide-angle end of the product lines aren't as useful.
  
• On to the last issue as stated above. For obvious reason, this lets out the D40. This meant that for my purposes, in the Nikon line, there were 3 other 6Mp cameras in play. The D100 (which by designation would seem to be a higher level machine, but kinda-not-really), the D70/D70s and the D50. When I looked at my budget, after deducting the price of the lens that I was buying which turned out to be a little under $600, I had about $350 left. My research showed that I could afford any of the 3 cameras above, but certainly NOT the D200 which was just then being replaced by the D300, and was still selling for well over $800 all by itself, meaning I could buy it, but wouldn't have a lens to shoot with! The D70s was eliminated because it cost more and would have forced me to buy a lesser lens than I wanted. I eliminated the D50 since it used the SD card, was the bottom-of-the-line before the D40 and essentially a stripped down D70. So that left me with the D70 or D100. The D100 had more "professional" type feature such as a battery/grip that allowed the use of 2 batteries and added an extra set of controls for vertical shooting. But, despite the fact that this used essentially the same sensor as the D70, it had a much older electronics side as well as the older flash system that's not nearly as sophisticated as the CLS that Nikon still uses on their newest cameras. So, despite the fact that I would have to give up some features and the perceived prestige of using an Dx00 model, I decided on the D70 based on the combination of all the above factors.
  

So there you are. Although you will most probably not have the same needs or quirks that impact the buying decision like I did, how those issues are dealt with should basically apply to most people. The most prominent of my little idiosyncracies that may not affect others is the need or desire to use legacy lenses and I'll probably have to write a whole other post on just why I have this as a criteria. If that's the case, then a much wider spectrum of choices is opened up for a starter DSLR camera...on which I'll write the next post.

Brands, Needs and Quirks

Here's where things get sticky and people tend to argue back and forth quite a lot about the relative merits of who's better. So let me start by restating my stance on this: THERE'S REALLY NO REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MAJOR BRANDS!!!

Now that that's out of the way, let's look at the major players and a synopsis of what I believe to be the important characteristics of each company or more to the point; the factors that played a role in my selection.

• Canon- Arguably "the big dog" in today's DSLR world. You'll probably find that somewhat more of today's professionals using this brand than any other (including Nikon). It isn't because it's better! It's because that professionals (like others) then to be herd animals and will use what they see or are around the most. Then once they get invested in the "system" (mostly the literally tens of thousands worth of lenses) then they will not/do not change. This was true back in the film days when virtually ALL professionals used Nikon. I am NOT going to get into how and why this happened in today's post. They make VERY fine equipment all up and down their product line and you really can't go wrong with any one of their models. It's like buying a cheap Mercedes...at the end of the day, it's still a Mercedes!
• Nikon- The "Old School" choice. Still a very high percentage of professional use this brand, but they're not the dominant choice like the old days. They tend to be the camera of choice for photojournalist, sports photographers, etc. and really that's because they tend to favor speed of operation over getting the absolutely highest quality image. Because they were so overwhelmingly dominant in the old film camera/manual focus days, Nikon handicapped itself by making absolutely certain that their old lens would work on their new (even Auto-focus cameras). Remember the tens of thousands invested in glass? Basically they didn't want to alienate their huge clientele by changing the lens mount to "best" accomodate new technology. That's not saying that their system doesn't work well and it's not as advanced (because it is), but lets just say that from a variety of standpoints such as manufacturing and marketing it's hurt them in the long run. If this doesn't make sense, you just have to remember that Nikon was and is still a company of engineers that makes nothing but optical equipment of one kind or another, whereas Canon is a large multi-faceted corporation that makes and sells any number of things.
  
• The Others Players- What I mean by this is the other companies that made DSLRs of the type that we're focusing on (to be explained later). First there's Konica/Minolta, these guys are currently disguised as Sony who bought out their technology after this venerable company shut down their camera division a few years ago. So yes, they have some models that could be considered both in the KM as well as the Sony guise. Pentax, another old-line Japanese camera/optics company that's still "in the game". The main issue here which is the same as some of the others, is that they are small and therefore don't offer a complete range of equipment, so unless you have a bunch of Pentax K-Mount lenses, I wouldn't worry about them or their later-day Korean partner Samsung. Although I must say that this electronics giant could very well develop into the 800 pound gorilla in the future.
  
• Then theirs Olympus- The company that defies being placed in any niche! As a matter of fact they operate much like the big boys, but just at MUCH lower numbers. AND they don't use the same size sensors as everybody else (more on that later). They have full-blown professional cameras such as the E-1 and E-3, as well as their consumer line the E-4*0, E-5*0, and E-6*0. They use a four/thirds sized senor (read smaller than the APS-C/DX size that most others use), that they along with a consortium of others developed several years ago. There are pluses and minus to this sensor type (again-more on that later).
  

Now that that that's out of the way, let me get to the factors that led me to the models that I targeted:

1. Of course, with ANY regular person (meaning married adult) with a regular job, you have a budget that's reasonable and I'll construe that to mean around $1000 total. Why would the "Frugal Propellerhead" set this amount when you can run right out and buy the basic Canon or Nikon for $500-700, spend another $100 or so on accessories and call it good after spending $600-800? Remember one of my most important rules of Frugality is that you have to plan head AND some times spend a little more in the beginning to be frugal in-the-long-run. In this case, the most basic model is rarely a good investment over time! Yes, it will take wonderful pictures for a relatively long time and the AVERAGE consumer will be quite happy with it over it's life-span, but THIS BLOG IS NOT FOR THE AVERAGE CONSUMER....IT'S FOR THE TECHNO-GEEK ON A BUDGET!!! Therefore, I'm going to assume that I'm writing this for someone like me and will probably get somewhat immersed in the hobby; if not, read somebody elses' blog.
2. I've already stated that the minimum sensor resolution that I was able to come up with that worked for me was 6 mega-pixel, so I won't get into that again other than to say- if you have a bigger budget, then ramp this number up. So I'll use this as the reference point when I begin to talk about specific models later.
3. Primary use/function was the main reason that led me to decide I had to get a DSLR to start with, so let me elaborate. I'd say that 75-85% of the time, I shoot people and most of that being my children, ages 4 and 7. For anyone who's had to try to shoot their own family pictures with more than one small child, to say that your windows of opportunity are small is simply an understatement. You factor in that my 4-year old is rarely if ever still, then let's just say that our 2-3 trips a year to document our little family's progress through life can be a chore with the best of equipment. So it became obvious to me that the Nikon Coolpix 8800 wasn't going to cut it. I needed something that was affordable (meaning about the same cost), but MUCH faster in operation. This leads to a couple of other factors that integrated into the decision making process; a rather sophisticated flash system so I can control constantly changing lighting conditions and a all-in-one lens so I wouldn't miss opportunities while changing lenses. This also has the benefit of limiting the amount of exposure to dust, etc. to my sensor as well. This also leads to the necessity of shooting virtually all my photo "hand-held" which leads to the need for Vibration Reduction (Nikon), Image Stabilization (Canon) or whatever the company calls this amazing piece of technology. When I get time, I'll probably write an entire post on how this has effected my photography alone. In the meantime, let just say that it's give you a FAR greater percentage of usable images when shooting pictures hand-held.
   

So it came down to this: I needed a lens that coverage a huge range with built-in VR/IS (if Nikon or Canon), I needed a camera that had at least 6Mp resolution that had better than low-end features and build-quality, in a system that I could live with for a long time. Now to my own personal quirks that factored into the decision-making process:

• I'm a collector as well as a user (history teacher, remember?). Therefore, a camera with the ability to get me into an established system with a lot of "stuff" out there is a plus. On the down-side, this also tends to drive the prices of these brands up somewhat.
• I'm as much of a computer nerd as photo nerd, so I don't need the camera to do a lot in terms of processing abilities.
  
• I had a several compact flash cards on hand so if I could get a camera that used those (as opposed to XD or SD memory) that would be a plus. This is not insignificant as this seems since these things can run $100 or more for a couple right off the bat.
• I like cameras to be a little on the "beefy" side, especially when using a bigger lens (like the 18-200mm that I planned on buying). I always felt that they balanced a little better, and I have a personal quirk that stemmed from my left-eye dominance. Let me explain. Back in the old days when you had a film winding lever on 35mm cameras virtually all of them had that lever on the right side (Asian cultures tend to be VERY right-handed), meaning that if I had my left eye to the viewfinder, the wind-lever would pretty much be against my right eye. Further more, the during the late 60's and early 70's cameras develop the internal meter feature which was turned on and off by having that wind-lever stand off from the back a little as a switch, this was further exacerbated by me being a glasses wearer, so you can imagine the problem. So, whenever possible, I used cameras that had a motor drive or electronic film winder option. This kept the lever from poking me in the right eye, gave the camera more heft and better balance when using large lenses as well as often having a grip to make holding the camera more comfortable over long periods (this is now pretty much become standard on all modern SLRs giving the large battery a place to live. So, in summary; I got used to using bigger cameras.

That's all I've got in me this morning, so I'll wrap it up.

"What to look for" Part 2

The other day, I started talking about what to look for when getting into the digital SLR game and had fairly quickly winnowed things down to 2 brands and 1 tier of mega-pixels. You guys must of thought; Wow another Ken Rockwell, cock-sure and dogmatic!

So let me slow down, back up and explain how and why I got to this place so quickly. And working backwards, it comes down to basic economics. I never said that the other brands like Sony, Pentax, Olympus and Samsung weren't any good. What I said was that they didn't hold anywhere near the market-share so they sold less, A LOT LESS of their product......and that means that there's a lot fewer of those models sitting around out there looking to be sold back into the market. Although the Olympus E Series cameras are excellent, and the Sony A Series or heck; the Konica/Minolta Maxxum 7D and 5D were excellent cameras, there is simply a lot less of them out there looking to be sold. Typically this means higher prices. I could draw you some nice charts explaining this, or take a long time to explain, but just trust me on this. When you combine this with the fact that ALL the independent lens manufacturers make their product in the Canon and the Nikon mounts, then the same is true of buying lenses for your new DSLR baby.

So, what's the story with 6 megapixels? Simply put, that's the lowest sensor resolution you can get away with and still get "equivilent to film" results on prints of up to anything reasonable....oh say 11 x 14 or even 13 x 19 inches.

OK, so lets assume that I've convinced you and you're going to focus on getting something in the 6Mp range made by either Canon or Nikon...now what? Well, you then determine what your budget is going to be and devote 2/3 of that to 1 lens; yes, I did say 1 lens. I'll use myself as an example. I had about $1000 to work with and wanted to pick up a DSLR with a good lens to the specs as I described above. In my case, I wanted a lens with what Nikon calls VR (Vibration Reduction) and Canon calls IS (Image Stabilization). I also wanted to rarely/if ever have to change lenses. So, for a 6Mp camera which would dictate an APS-C/DX sized sensor, that means a 35mm film equiv. of about 28mm on the wide end to somewhere around 200-300mm on the long end. Why those numbers?

On a 35mm camera, a 50mm lens is considered to have the angle of coverage which gives a perspective most closely resembling what we see from our eyes. In the typical progression, the most common focal lengths would be 35mm, 28mm, 24mm, 20mm, etc. on the wide end and 85mm, 135mm, 200mm, 300mm, 400mm etc. on the long end. Most photographers would consider 28mm as where "wide" starts and 135mm where "long or telephoto" starts. In order to get the kind of coverage that goes from wide to telephoto you'd need something like a 28-300mm zoom. In the digital world the majority of cameras sold are APS-C/DX sensor size, so using the 1.5x conversion, you'd need an 18-200mm lens.

Therefore in my case, I needed the Nikon 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 VR lens since canon didn't make one in that range which neatly costs around $650 used making it 2/3s of my $1000 budget. Which left me with $350 to buy the camera and the rest as you've hear...."is history".

Next time, I'll get into the finer details of camera/brand selection.

How to get started with a DSLR.

In honor of my friend Andy who has asked the fateful question: "what should I look for", I'm going to do a series on what to do to get started. To that end, I'll throw some philosophical though for you to chew on. By all means though, take it with a grain of salt! Most of my decision-making has layers of factors, but I'll try to keep my personal biases out of it or point out the cases where it is that.

My personal experience over the years with film cameras have mostly been with Canon and Pentax. Although I must say that I've had and used Olympus, Exacta and Minolta camera as well. My experience with digital right up until I bought the Nikon 8800 was with Kodak point-and-shoot cameras. So I'm fairly certain that don't have a lot of brand-oriented biases.

Much of my thought process has to do with costs. The logic is based on the assumption that the "top dogs" were pretty much even as far as an amateur was concerned. I've read that some 80% of the Digital SLR market is swallowed up by Canon, Sony(previously Konica/Minolta) and Nikon leaving 20% for Olympus, Pentax, Fuji, Sigma, etc. So by sheer logic those would be the camera that'd be cheapest both to acquire and to buy lenses for in the future. Since Sony is a late-comer and by far the smallest of the big 3, and therefore it was eliminated for the same reason.

This leaves Canon and Nikon. The reality is that they are both pretty much going to give indistinguishable results with comparable models. Before I get into the convoluted logic as to how I decided, I'd encourage you to go and find either a couple of friends with competing models that you can lay-hands on or a fairly good sized camera store that has a good stock of used cameras so you can hold both. It'll give you a chance to see what feels better in your hands and how the menu system makes sense. There may simple be something about one brand or another that you either like or dislike, so it's best to find this out early on.

A good place to start is with the Nikon D40, D50, D70(s) and Canon Rebel XT or XTi. All those models can do a decent job as a starter camera that won't cost too much. You might also throw in the Olympus E-410 or 510 as well if you can find it, although it's not really "apple-to-apples" since it's a four/thirds system vs. APS-C in sensor size.

Why is it a big deal with brand with they are all pretty much just alike? Well, the best analogy that I can come up with is that getting into a "system" with a DSLR is like getting married. Once you getting connected with on, it's hard to just into a different one. Oh yeah, you can do it, but it'll cost you....sound familiar?

The fact of the matter is that although, the camera body might seem expensive; in the long run, most of us have way more invested in glass (lenses), flashes and other items than the body itself and all that other stuff is virtually NEVER compatible!

Next episode, I'll get into all the little stuff.