Doc Searls ponders his next camera. He’s looking at digital SLRs. I have a Canon EOS Digital Rebel and I really like it. One drawback is the built-in flash which provides about as much light as a lightning bug in heat. Balancing that is the “shoe” on top of the camera that will hold the functional equivalent of a klieg light if you really want it too. “I’m ready for my close-up,” she said, and we hit the lights and burnt her eyebrows right off her face.
I also have a Nikon Coolpix that is small enough to slip in a jacket pocket. I’ve enjoyed the Coolpix for snapshots over the last year or so. The Canon EOS is more of a production — from schlepping it around to changing lenses and dealing with the choices that the SLR offers in terms of settings.
Since there are so many good SLRs out there right now, I’d ask the professionals what they use and see if I could afford one of those. Since there so many professionals to ask, Doc ought to be emailing Niek and Heather and Derek and Shelley for their advice, and not relying on anything he hears from a shutter-putterer like me.
Today, Niek writes about Reality and Myth in a mud wrestling contest… interesting to ponder. Derek has an essay that has some tangency to Niek’s… Design for Selfishness. Go for the photos, stay for the writing.
Update: Voting for Kevin Marks’ neologism, “Wifired,” this morning I discovered a word that just calls out to be used (if not precisely as defined by the neologger): Technorazzi — “Doc’s one of the guys with cameras at technology events. He’s one of the technorazzi.” Update-update… it looks like Kevin won!
Thanks for the compliment, Frank, but I don’t consider myself a pro photographer. That would be too much credit. I’m a serious amateur. I know too well what it takes to be a real professional photographer, because I’ve worked with the best for many years. And learned a lot from them. I do have a professional background in the audiovisual business, but you’ll never hear me say too easily I’m a full time professional photographer.
It may surprise you, but I still don’t have a digital SLR of my own, although I’ve been able to try out quite a few in the past years. I want to stick with Nikon, because all my other equipment is Nikon, but it’s only recently that Nikon released a camera for people like me: the D200.
I never really liked their low end DSLR’s (D50 and D70) and their high end stuff is out of my league. The D200 however now seems to fill the gap and give me what I want and with a bit of luck I may be able to afford one this year. But not after I give it a thorough test run… 😉