Less than Impressed = Time for a Change
Towards the end of September, 2009 I took a trip to Vietnam from Bangkok where I live armed only with my Canon HG 10 high definition camcorder. I had been using the built-in still camera for the past few months after I lost my last point-and-shoot camera’s charging cradle which rendered it useless. It was actually very handy to have the still camera built in the camcorder because I love taking videos too. I think I got some good pictures of the Petronas Towers when I went to Kuala Lumpur with the HG10′s still camera but it wasn’t until I got back from Vietnam when I decided I needed to get a new camera.
I saw some beautiful scenery in Vietnam and thought I got some amazing photos by looking at the camcorders 3 inch viewfinder but when I finally uploaded them on my computer I was less than impressed. The pictures were always either washed out, too dark or too bright and even though I know if I knew the settings on the camcorder better I may have taken better pictures, but that wouldn’t fix the underling issues.
One of the problems with the camcorder’s built-in still camera (as with most point-and-shoots) is it takes a while for the camera to load and focus after each and every picture. Not to mention that the automated settings are usually unreliable and the manual settings are usually complicated and slow if not difficult to access. These two issues makes it difficult (with a point-and-shoot camera) to take enough shots of a subject to get one which is just what you are looking for and I thought a digital SLR would be the solution.
My Photography & Camera Lineage
My Pictures with Multiple Cameras
When I was a youngster my father was an amateur photographer who routinely had his photographs placed in exhibitions and won awards. One photograph of his was even displayed in the California governor’s mansion for a period of time. Naturally I wanted to take pictures and I remember using those square cameras with the plastic cartridges when I was little.
Fast forward to high school and I took photography class for a few quarters because it was fun and it let you leave campus and go anywhere to take pictures. There I learned about ISO, aperture and shutter speed as well as the chemical process of developing film and making prints. By the time I graduated high school in 1997 digital cameras were just coming out to the consumer market.
My first digital camera I purchased in college was a Fuji Finepix model which was mid-range at 2 megapixels at the time. For the occasional snapshots and Ebay auction photos the Fuji digital camera lasted me all the way up to around 2005 when it finally died from being old. It actually died just before I was supposed to leave on a trip to Costa Rica so I had to find a suitable replacement fast. I didn’t do much research so I just found the smallest, newest and most popular point-and-shoot camera which happened to be one of the first 10+ megapixel digital cameras the Casio Exilim.
The Casio lasted me numerous trips from Asia to South America to New York and back to Thailand. While I got some good pictures with the Casio Exilim, they were mostly when the lighting was perfect like in the bright sunlight. Even when I used the manual settings the pictures with the less-than-perfect lighting turned out to be grainy at best and sometimes just plain bad.
I had purchased the Canon HG 10 high definition camcorder f for my website’s exercise videos and I had not used it for still pictures until I moved to a new apartment in Bangkok and lost the charging cradle which was a flaw of the Casio Exilim model I had, because without the cradle, the camera was useless. Instead of immediately buying a replacement cradle I transitioned into using my camcorder’s still camera. Finally as I described at the top of this post, I was disappointed with the quality of the pictures I got in relation to the scenery I tried to capture so I decided it was time for a digital SLR.
Help Along the Way
A professional photographer friend of mine who helped do the pictures for the redesign of my San Francisco Personal Trainers website FitSF.com recommended I get the Nikon D90 the week before I left to Thailand. I was amazed at the pictures he took as they showed me how great photos can look when taken with an SLR. Since he recommended the D90 it was always on the top of my list even though the price tag was pretty hefty.
I wanted to get the best camera for the money so I spent the most part of two or three days shopping around for the right digital SLR for me. I did some research online then went to every camera shop in MBK to check out my options on 3 separate occasions. I had narrowed down my camera to 4 models including the Nikon D90 and D5000, the Canon Rebel T1i and the Pentax K20D which was weatherproofed. They were all mid-range Digital SLR cameras.
How did I know they were mid-range Digital SLR cameras? I used this wonderful website called CameraLabs.com The website had great videos reviewing all major camera models explaining everything you needed to know. CameraLabs has very comprehensive reviews and all the information you could want to help you. The editor/narrator Gordon Lange explains everything in very understandable terms and give you the option to decide.
Making a Decision
I never have an easy time making a decision especially when it comes to buying something Like I said before, CameraLabs.com gave all the helpful information but they didn’t make a decision for you. There were four primary models I was considering and it really was between the Nikon D90 and the Canon because I’ve used a friend’s Canon SLR before and love my Canon camcorder. I still had to find a place to buy it and bargain hunting is not as easy as it is in the USA. Most high-end consumer electronics are just as expensive as retail products in the USA and mail order involves a lot of extra charges.
I made my decision that I wanted a digital SLR and I wanted it soon. I wasn’t willing to order it or have a friend buy it in the states and bring it here to Thailand. After tons of research and debating I was leaning towards getting the Nikon D90 which was my first choice but the Canon was still on my mind until I was finally influenced by the oddest of things. I was watching Fashion TV which is this channel where they play 1/3 fashion shows, 1/3 fashion parties, and 1/3 fashion photo shoots 24/7 to house music when I noticed that every photographer was using a Nikon. Not that Canon have inferior optics or just because the photographers on Fashion TV use Nikons means that the D90 will be a good camera for me, but it was a spur of the moment thing and I was going to the mall the next day and buying that camera!
