Gizmodo just published a buying guide for DSLR’s. They recommended four different cameras in four different price points. They were brand-agnostic, picking the best camera regardless of whether you were in the Nikon Camp or Canon Camp (sorry Olympus and Sony).
I agree with all their picks, the Nikon D3000, Canon T1i, Nikon D90 and Canon 7D do beat out their peers in their respective price points.
New digital cameras are complicated, and my D90 is no different. With so many new, additional features from my D50, it’s pretty hard to go through the large user manual to learn all the features. Nikon has produced a great online tutorial for the d90 – and it’s free. There’s additional tutorials for their other cameras going as far back as the D50 and D70.
A while back I blogged about sling bags for carrying digital SLR’s. Future Shop has a great sale on the Lowepro 200 AW sling bag, just $80 until April 30.
At their corporate museum, Canon has a display with a 400MM f/4 DO IS USM lens on a 1Ds cut in half, similar to the Nikon I posted earlier.
In this article at Gizmodo, they discuss why more megapixels in a camera does not necessarily mean better picture quality. not just the size, but the quality and type of sensors used in cameras affect it.
The holidays always mean nice roasts for dinner – turkey and roast beef are traditional, but we’ve also done lamb and small hens too. For the last few years I’ve used a digital meat thermometer to get perfect “doneness” of the roasts. These eletronic probes are put into the meat before cooking and then stay in there while the meat cooks. Alarms are set for when it reaches the temperature you want, and most have a guide for different types of meat and levels of doneness (e.g. rare or medium-rare).
They’re not that expensive, running $30-50 and the fancier ones have two temperature readings, internal (the meat) and external (the oven). Useful when you’re not sure if your oven thermometer is accurate.
Digital Photography Review (dpreview) rated the high end compact cameras and the Panasonic LX3 came out on top. It doesn’t have the most megapixels or the most zoom, but it has the best features that photographers want: a bright, sharp f2.0 lens, a wide angle lens, and lots of control over manual features of the camera. This gave it an edge to be the leader in all three categories that they used: Outdoors/daylight, Low light/High ISO and performance/Flash.
Nikon introduced four new SLR bodies in 2008. That’s quite remarkable considering there were only three launches last year and one of them was the D40x small update. RIght now, the only model that hasn’t been updated in 2008 is the D300. Expect news on this next year – I expect some new updates to the D300 but nothing like it going to use the FX sensor or anything that earth shattering. Maybe only the addition of video capabilities like the D90.
Nikon D60 – Jan 29, 2008
Nikon D700 – Jul 1, 2008
Nikon D90 – Aug 27, 2008
Nikon D3X – Dec 1, 2008
After a series of leaks last week, Nikon just made official the new Nikon D3x – their new top-of-the-line digital SLR camera. The D3x is a D3 with a new sensor featuring a 24.5 MP full frame picture size. Full details are available at Nikon USA. Various blogs also are carrying info: DPReview and Ken Rockwell. And yes, if you have to ask, you cannot afford it ($7995 USA MSRP).
I was surprised by this result, The Gadget Show in the UK took the same picture using the same lens but two different bodies: Nikon’s F5 vs. D700. They blew it up to a very large (27′) picture and hung it outside a building and compared the two. Guess what won?