Okay this former techno phobic photographer has gone totally digital. While it started innocently enough, a customer insisted on a project being shot totally on digital. He even fronts the cost of the camera. At first I just used the digital camera for the project, which while paying well was not the most exciting assignment I have had, it also left me with weekends to amuse myself in cities I was not familiar with.
That was where the insidious digital bug infected me with its treacherous bite. To find out just what this digital format was capable of I took it to the local zoo. The camera was a Nikon Coolpix 990, while it had some draw backs, I was able to turn out some surprising results. I went on to buy a good photo quality printer that could turn out 11X14 prints of excellent quality. Alas the camera was limited to the built in lens, a small range of exposure options, a long shutter lag time, and slow auto focus system. Trying to frame the photograph using the digital monitor could be clumsy, and hard to see in bright light.
How I longed for a digital that would handle like my 35mm film camera, with interchangeable lenses, and flash units. Frame the picture through the lens, use the monitor only for a quick check to make sure you got the picture right, and be able to use a full range of different lenses. There were a couple of options on the market, but the price range was well out of reach for the average person. Then both Nikon, and Canon came out with moderately priced bodies for around $1,500 not exactly cheap but much closer than the $5,000 tag on the previous models. In the last 12 months both have also come out with models that sell for just under $1,000 for the body or in a kit with a lens for around $1,200. I was in digital photographer heaven, it took me a while but I finally got the Nikon D-100.
Why the Nikon instead of the Canon? The answer is very simple all my lenses, and flash unit are for Nikon. I have a friend who owns the comparable Canon and loves it so I will just relate my experience with the D-100 instead of trying to do a comparison. My reason for going with the D-100 instead of the new less expensive D-70 boiled down to some personal reasons. First the 100 is built on the N-80 frame which is what I have been using for film photography so I have a basic knowledge of the controls, and the feel of the camera in my hands. It weighs more than the 70 because the frame for the 100 is metal, where as the 70 is on a plastic frame. Since I shoot a lot around horse pastures, in construction sites, and around semi trucks, the metal frame just seemed a better move for me. The new plastics are tough and may have worked just fine for what I needed but the metal just appealed more to my old fashioned thought process. Having read all the reports that place the cameras on almost the same level technically it was just a matter of personal preference.
While my first results were a little less than totally pleasing they did hint at a very bright future. Every spare moment was spent with my nose buried in the owners manual. The quick start manual is just that a quick start, to really fine tune your photography requires a study of the manual with the camera in front of you so that you can actually experiment with the controls as you read. The plethora of control options are so many that I won’t even try to cover them here, but will just give you a brief overview. One of the first things I wanted to test was the ability to follow a moving object for multiple exposures. My first exposures were very disappointing the image was out of focus and didn’t sharpen up till the final exposure, then I read about the dynamic auto focus. This allows the camera to think ahead a little bit, my next try was much better all of the images were sharp, and crisp. Each image was sucking me deeper into the digital abyss with its quality, ease, and the immediate gratification of instantly seeing my images. But how would it work with a flash unit?
Some friends were drafted for my next effort, flash photography. Using the built in flash outdoors to fill in shadows gave me some great options. I could just turn the flash on and let it make all the decisions, or I could tell the flash to under or over expose the shadows to achieve what ever effect that I wanted. Indoors the flash worked well also without a lot of the red eye effect that was so common in other digital cameras. It has a red eye reduction option but so far I haven’t needed it. Using my external flash unit also revealed the versatility of this camera. All of the options available when using the built in flash are also available when using an external flash unit. I may have saved my friend some money as his wife agreed not to drag him to a studio for family portraits this year thanks to the images I gave them. I have been unable to fool the automatic white balance as of this writing, all the colors are bright crisp, and right were they should be. However there are controls to adjust the color temperature for various types of lighting such as; tungsten, florescent, daylight, and for open shade.
Overall I have fallen in love with this camera, it handles like a great 35mm camera, with all the bells, and whistles of a top of the line camera. The general feel of the camera in my hand is comfortable, if a little on the heavy side, which in my thinking makes it easier to hold steady. With the two lenses I carry; a 28-80mm and a 70-300mm zoom lens I have everything covered between 28mm and 300mm.A good waist pack or pair of cargo pants allows me to carry everything needed for a day of shooting, instead of carrying a bulky camera bag. If you can afford the price tag for the body then by all means Digital SLR is the way to go.
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