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.