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New Camera Suggestions Please........

followup to my Nikon D-60 with VR lenses post.....

When my son was here ffor the holidays...he brought their D-40 with standard non-VR lenses and we did a number of comparison shots to see how the VR lenses ( Vibration Reduction in Nikon speak) worked....

the difference could be great (especially under low light) or it could be minimal in high light (fast lens speed) pictures. I am glad I have the VR lenses....they seem to make up for my large mitts and my tendency to snap-off a picture and thereby move the camera .... especially with the small poinnt and shoot digital I have been using.

I would not buy a new digital without some form of vibration reduction having seen the results of our comparison.

Just my novice two cents....
 
Just Purchased the Nikon D-60.

:dance

After reading over all of the good advice I just went by my local camera store and picked up the Nikon D-60. http://www.f11photo.com/product.aspx?pf_id=018208254385

I also added the 200mm VR lens (vibration reduction) everyone one in our family has a small amount of "hand tremor" (one reason I would have never made a good waiter or flight attendant) so the VR lense should help out.

I'm charging the battery now, photos to follow.

Happy New Year!

Mike
 
Here's a really good website for digital camera research and comparisons: www.dpreview.com

It's as deep as you can go and has tons of information for all levels of gear.

Cheers

Fin
 
:dance

After reading over all of the good advice I just went by my local camera store and picked up the Nikon D-60. http://www.f11photo.com/product.aspx?pf_id=018208254385

I also added the 200mm VR lens (vibration reduction) everyone one in our family has a small amount of "hand tremor" (one reason I would have never made a good waiter or flight attendant) so the VR lense should help out.

I'm charging the battery now, photos to follow.

Happy New Year!

Mike


Congratulations! dSLR's are the bomb!
 
:dance

After reading over all of the good advice I just went by my local camera store and picked up the Nikon D-60. http://www.f11photo.com/product.aspx?pf_id=018208254385

I also added the 200mm VR lens (vibration reduction) everyone one in our family has a small amount of "hand tremor" (one reason I would have never made a good waiter or flight attendant) so the VR lense should help out.

I'm charging the battery now, photos to follow.

Happy New Year!

Mike

I have nikon D200 with 18-200 VR lens and this is by far the coolest lens I've use so far,
congrats :thumb
 
My suggestion is buy the Nikon D90 body seperatly and then go with the Tamron AF18-270mm Lens. It has a built-in focus motor,vibration compensation and great glass and elements. It is quite compact and uses 72 mm filters and it fits in your tank bag easily. By going with one lens such as this one it minimizez what you have to carry for excellent pics, one set of filters for everthing including your polarizer filter. The D-SLR D-90 will also shoot about 5 min. of video at high resolution or about 20 min. at lower resolution. A pretty hard combination to beat plus the one lens simplicity is what I like on a bike when travelling although I do carry a pocket point and shoot Pentax W20n which is water resistant to 10 ft. The reason for that camera is because you can use it in whatever the weather is when I wouldn't want ot pull out my Nikon in the pouring rain or sand storm.:thumb
 
Digital Cameras for the motorbike

Just finished a maddening search for the perfect camera not only for general use, but also specifically for the motorbike on tour.

The search starts when two old standbys, a Nikon and a Canon, both decide to die. Well worn, slow, and heavy, but they were paid for and worked as well as when new. Then they died a predictable death. A known defect in both cases; but wait! There's a solution for both; send them in to the manufacturer, and they will be healed!! (For a minimum $250 charge, they will fix it, and send you back that same well worn, slow, heavy chunk!)

Okay, for $250, I see I can get a plethora of shiny new bobbles that will take pictures. Which one? There are over 200 models for sale at any one time, and with Canon (for example) turning out over 20 models PER YEAR, it is nearly impossible to keep up with them.

Go to http://www.stevesdigicams.com and http://www.dpreview.com, and you will be overwhelmed by the number of reviews...and how similar the reviews sound! There are other sources of reliable info if you use them with a grain of salt...the reviews of the camera. Amazon and other sites have a number of reviews written by buyers of the equipment. If it is good to so/so, the reviews will be raves. If the product is bad, the reviews will be vitriolic!

There are a couple of things you want for general use and for motorbike use: First, skim through the reviews and see what they think about the image quality. If that sucks, go to another model even if you can't get it in pink! Remember, the primary reason to buy a camera is to capture a good image. This eliminates many of the $175 class grinders, but so be it. And also, some of the $300 nuggets that profess tremendous (Leica) lens are eliminated because of noise at almost all settings.

Second, it must be useable with heavy winter leather gloves! This may be a bit of a stretch, until you try to use some of the shiny ones that more resemble a Zippo lighter than a camera. They might look good in your wife's "go to the concert" purse, but you, with your fat gloves hiding fat fingers working with weak eyes, in the dust or rain, will very soon train yourself to leave that frustrating trinket in the tank bag!

You are looking for a good image from a maneuverable body that has no-brainer controls for most settings, a quick turn-on time, and a robust body that closes into itself when turned off to protect itself from the ravishes of nature onboard a bike. Image stabilization is a given.

You can Google and read until you turn blue with all the stats available, but you can't heft and hold it. You can Best Buy it; hoist, hold and heft until you're sick of it, but no specs or knowledgeable salesman are to be had at the store. You need to do both, then order over the internet...no sales tax, a better price, same warranty, and delivered to your door. Or Craigslist.

Good luck on your search. For me, I ended up with a Canon G9. $500 at Best Buy, $400 on the internet, or $300 on Craigslist. I've found it works...with Gloves! YRMV

This article was written last summer for another forum. It is still applicable, but the number of cameras keeps multiplying like rabbits. dpreviews did a very nice job of rating P & S cameras for the holidays. That comparo may help. BTW, my two dslrs now sit at home with their beautiful lens, while a decent P & S makes each trip, in the pocket or the tank bag. Good luck on your choice...now days its hard to go wrong.
 
This article was written last summer for another forum. It is still applicable, but the number of cameras keeps multiplying like rabbits. dpreviews did a very nice job of rating P & S cameras for the holidays. That comparo may help. BTW, my two dslrs now sit at home with their beautiful lens, while a decent P & S makes each trip, in the pocket or the tank bag. Good luck on your choice...now days its hard to go wrong.

You don't have to limit yourself to one camera. My P&S is tethered to my tank bag for on the go shooting. The SLR is in a tail bag. The best of both worlds.

<img src="http://www.snafu.org/pics/r1200gs/gearkeeper/p-20081119-1606-4674.jpg" title="tethered for safety">

Normally that camera is in the tank bag. If I have to drop it, that is where it will wind up.

// marc
 
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