Picking the Right Camera: Film or Digital?

Dan Knight

Picking the Right Camera Series Index

• Film or Digital?
• Picking the Right Digital Camera
• Megapixels Come First
• Picking a Type of Digicam
• Lenses on Digital Cameras
• The Imager and Digital Zoom
• Digital Image Quality
• Finally, Picking a Digicam
• Picking the Right 35mm SLR
• Introduction to Lenses
• Picking the Right Lens(es)
• 35mm SLR Features
• Picking a Brand and Model
• Pros and Cons of Built-in Flash
• Putting Your System Together
• Picking the Right Viewfinder Camera
• Lenses and Lens Speed
• Shutter Speeds, Flash, and Autofocus
• Prewind, Red-eye Reduction, and Printing the Date
• Choosing Your Camera

Dan Knight is the author of Digigraphica and used 35mm SLRs from the early 1970s through about 2004, when he went 100% digital. He was a yearbook/school photographer from 1972 through 1980 and has worked at the Camera-Stereo Centre in St. Catharines, Ontario, and Marks Photo and Arden's Photo in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Recent Digigraphica Columns

• Nikon D40 Provides Lots of Quality at a Nice Price, 10.28. For most photographers most of the time, Nikon's D40 DSLR has all the features and quality necessary and an affordable price.
• Digital SLRs are affordable enough to replace 35mm SLRs, 03.11. Prices for DSLRs have dropped to record lows, and image quality generally matches or exceeds that of film.
• No more ugly dates (in your digital photos), 03.06. Tired of ugly, blocky, wrong colored dates in your digital images? This proposal could eliminate them for good, giving you control over typeface, color, and placement.
• High megapixel compact digicams may be worse than we thought, 02.21. In the rush to squeeze more megapixels into a tiny image sensor, manufacturers are sometimes making compromises that result in fuzzy, grainy, washed out images.
• More in the Digigraphica index.

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• i5 iMac Benchmarked, Mac mini 'Shouldn't Be Overlooked', Twitter Client for Classic Mac OS, and More, Mac News Review, 11.20. Also why Apple leaves the low end to others, 10.6.2 fixes video playback problem in 27" iMac, 3D Leopard and Snow Leopard performance, and more.
• Apple #4 in Reliability, Apple Tablet a Gadget for All?, HP's i7 Notebook Outdoes Mac Rivals, and More, The 'Book Review, 11.20. Also Flash 10.1 improves video on Hackintosh netbooks, thin-and-light notebooks impress, Windows XP finally on the way out, and more.
• NASA Chemical Sensor for iPhone, Smartphone Death Match, iPhone Earrings, and More, Ian R Campbell, 11.20. Also mobile phone dangers, new apps, GPS solution for iPod touch, new iPod and iPhone cases, and more.
• Replacing the Hard Drive in a Clamshell iBook, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 11.19. Yes, it is one of the most difficult Apple notebooks to disassemble and reassemble, but a 10 GB hard drive just will not do.
• IBM Model F: A Great Old Keyboard with an Outdated Layout, Tommy Thomas, Welcome to Macintosh, 11.19. Although it used a different technology than the revered IBM Model M keyboard, the Model F was a great keyboard in its own right.
• Soft Touch Keyboards, Wireless Mouse Options, Loving SeaMonkey 2, and More, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 11.18. Also the future of browsing with PowerPC Macs and the multiple mouse input bug introduced with OS X 10.5.8.
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• Best iBook G4 Deals, 11.16. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $210; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz, $479; SuperDrive, $498.
• Best iPod shuffle Deals, 11.16. Used 1 GB, $35; 4 GB, $65; refurb 1 GB, $39; 2 GB, $59; new 2 GB, $55, 4 GB, $75. New and refurb prices include shipping.
• More deals in our archive.

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