On Thursday 13 September 2007 06:13:52 Mogens Jæger wrote: > >Thank you all for the interesting comments and information. In the > > past > > >I was a great fan of the SLR and I had several starting with a > > Russian > > >camera, 'Zenit', which I still have and finishing up with a Nikon > > with > > >28mm and 135mm lenses which unfortunately were stolen. My Arthritic > >problems were just starting so I moved to an Olympus compact camera > > with > > >built in zoom and have staggered from then into the digital era. In > > my > > >earlier years I had a dark room which eventually I had to give up and > >now I see my computer taking over the functions of a dark room. > > > >So you see, I am not a newcomer to photography and I am well aware of > >the problems with dust etc especially with SLR cameras. As I said in > > my > > >original posting I need ease of handling and RAW. Changing lenses is > > not > > >so easy when one hand is holding a walking cane even standing for any > >length of time is a problem. Carrying equipment is not comfortable > > and I > > >do like to wander on my own when out for a shoot. > > > >Norman > > Depending on which focal area is of your interest, there are more > interesting suggestions - all of the "bridge" type, witch means "bigger > compacts". > My suggestion is (being an Olympus fan) the Olympus SP-560 UZ. It has > a 27 - 486 (35 mm equivalent) lens, 8Mp and saves in RAW. Besides that > it has an CCD-based image stabilization system. And of course full > manual exposure control. > Just add a couple of points:
1. If you do decide to buy a DSLR which IMHO is the only sound choice if you do want to produce high quality images, then it is really important to carefully consider what lenses you really need. 2. My personal choice for professional use is the Canon 5D (I have two bodies) which has a full frame chip rather then the reduced chip sizes of the "consumer" DSLR. Inevitably, as cost of producing full frame chips drop they will become available on "consumer range" camera. This means that any lenses you buy which cannot be used on full frame will be useless when you upgrade to full frame. (e.g the "S" lenses on the canon range will not be a good long term investment. Most phtographers change their bodies far more frequently than lenses. Over a lifetime a photographer will spend much more on lenses than camera bodies. 3. If you do want to produce projected images then gimp will serve you well because digital projectors have very low resolution (most run at 1024x768). For such images you do not need a high resolution camera. HOWEVER if you want to produce large high quality prints then unfortunatelyt gimp does not cut the mustard. The current lack of supprt for 16bit per channel means it is far below the industry standard. (Photoshop CS3 now has support that extends well beyond 16bit per channel).and for that reason I most other other professionals use photoshop much as we would like to be able to use gimp. Another gimp problem is the learning curve -- it does not have an interface that makes it an easy step to move from photoshop to gimp. Anyway you makes your choice from waht suits you _______________________________________________ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
