Choosing a digital camera Choosing a digital camera is a personal decision and I won't get into it except to mention a couple things. The quality of the digital file is of paramount importance if you plan to produce large prints. By large I mean anything up to poster size, which is about 22" x 33". Although I wouldn't have said so three years ago, CMOS sensors used by Canon now produce by far the cleanest files in my experience. Even when shot at ASA 800 there is almost no noise at all. At ASA 1600 there is very little noise and then only in the shadows. Up to now I have not seen this quality from CCD sensors. While it's possible to filter out noise in the darkroom, this usually results in a slightly softer file and some loss of detail. When you prepare a file for a large print you will quickly come to appreciate as sharp a file as possible right out of the camera so that very little sharpening is required. I do a lot of hiking in my work. For this reason weight is important. I have lugged long 18" telephoto lenses and 35mm film cameras all over the Rocky Mountains and Foothills and I can tell you the lighter digital SLR cameras of today are a blessing. Not only are they better, some of the best digital SLRs of today use sensors that are smaller than a full frame sensor, which is the size of a 35mm slide. For nature photographers this is a big advantage. More about this below. The camera I use most of the time
After selling both of my 35mm film cameras and lenses I had to make a decision, in fact two decisions. It came down to 'where to best spend my money'. I really wanted to buy the full frame Canon EOS 1Ds II and add a couple Canon lenses. But the EOS 1Ds II would have cost me about $10,500 where I live, and the lenses would have cost almost as much. I then considered the Canon 20D. Without going into the details it has a very clean, 8 megapixel CMOS sensor that has sufficient detail to print up to poster size and beyond with proper upsampling. And it produces an incredibly sharp file right out of the camera, even with no in-camera sharpening. I just about bought it but then decided to look at the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT (350D in Europe). It has basically the same CMOS sensor as the 20D and all of the features I need. And the 350D is smaller and lighter, which appealed to me. So I decided on the Canon Rebel 350D and chose to spend the extra money I would have spent on the 20D (about $700) on a couple extra batteries, larger Compact Flash cards, and various filters and closeup lenses. Canon has received a patent for a new process for making their CMOS sensors. They're not saying much about it yet as far as details go, but it is believed that this new process will result in higher megapixels and lower costs. I can almost feel a 16 to 24 megapixel Canon dSLR with the same 22.2 x 14.8mm sensor as the 350D in my hands sometime next year. At least I hope. The lens I finally chose was the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM zoom. This is a very sharp semi-pro (although I know several pros who use one), full size lens that doesn't weigh nearly as much as the professional and much more expensive Canon 'L' lens. Improved Image Stabilizer Technology provides up to three stops of "shake" correction, and the "Mode 2" option stabilizes images while panning with a moving subject. And it's black. In my opinion walking around with an expensive, white, $4,000 lense is asking to be mugged. With the advantages that digital brings to photography I'm always perplexed when I hear a photographer worry over the digital effect that smaller sensors have on lenses. Smaller sensors, by their nature, change the effective focal length of a lens. But there are benefits to this. For instance the EOS 1Ds II has a full size 35.8 x 23.8 mm sensor, which is the size of a 35mm slide, while both the 20D and Rebel 350D have a smaller 22.2 x 14.8mm sensor. Consequently both smaller sensors use the middle of the lens instead of the whole lens. The focal mutliplier is 1.6 so this translates into a longer zoom, which is what I need for the work I do. Consequently the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM zoom becomes a 112-480mm zoom. Add a matched 2x multiplier and it becomes a 224-960mm ultra zoom. This is excellent for even the longest shots I might want to make. As for the money I saved on not buying the Canon EOS 1Ds II and lenses, I'm going to pick up a nice Class C camper and hit the road to photograph and paint the Pacific Northwest and the Rocky Mountains for eight to ten months each year. Maybe one day I can pick up a 1Ds II or whatever replaces it. But at this point in my career I don't want to print anything larger than poster size anyway, so the decision hasn't impacted negatively on my work, and it will add immensely to my lifestyle.
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