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.