I finally took the plunge and got a digital SLR camera. It was a long and painful journey of contemplation. In the end the decision was made more or less spontaneously at the store, holding each of the candidates in my hand (for the nth time…).
I settled for a Canon EOS 350D. I admit my biggest argument against it was that it is too mainstream and some have also said that it is not too comfortable in your hand.
I held the Nikon D50 and D70 in my hand, and their size surely did feel better, however I kept feeling that they were slipping out of my hand, especially if it was a little more sweaty.
So in the end I chose the 350D and as I have used it a bit, I am happy with most of the purchase. The unhappy portion is the lens.
I bought the 17-85mm IS USM lens in a kit along with the camera, and the lens cost almost as much as the camera itself. After using the lens a little, I am disappointed by the lens vs price ratio.
Surely the lens is good, but at it’s widest angle it is waaay too blurry for my tastes, the Image Stabilizer does not work as well as I hoped, and the maximum aperture of f4.0 (or f5.6 most of the time, since it’s widest angle sucks) is just not enough. At least for that price. I would rather have spent an extra 3k on an L lens of almost the same dimensions, but without IS (which I so far have not learned to use correctly). Although at 50mm, the lens produced almost the same quality as my EF 50mm f1.8 II lens, so there is potential there.
In any case, I am very happy that I can finally close that chapter and move on to actually take the pictures instead of trying to decide what camera to get.
Anyway, enough ranting, check out the pics I took today (with my EF 50mm f1.8 II lens).
Tags: photos