Where did you say you are taking that camera?

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Introduction... what this article is and is not

This article was originally published on another site. It was initially written in 2003, was updated through the years, and was moved to it's new home in January 2009. The dates on the pages do not reflect the actual publication dates; unfortunately the site where this article was previously posted did not allow indication of a page written date.

Since the focus of the article is the choice of camera features to meet individual's needs as opposed to the choice of a specific camera, I believe the information here is still useful.

If you find factual errors, please contact me and I will be happy to correct the errors and to give you credit for the correction.

Touring and cameras go hand in hand for me. I enjoy traveling by bike and I enjoy taking photos in an attempt to capture some of the things that I see from my bike. Of course, the pictures never seem to do justice to what I actually see, but I keep trying. And now that I use a digital camera as I wander on my bike, I take even more pictures - something about not having to pay for processing leads me to click, and click, and click again.

I made the switch from a film camera to a digital camera before I took off on my cross-country trip in June of 2002. I had a lot of questions that went beyond the usual "what features do I want?" Questions and concerns - like

How much storage space (digital media) do I need?
Will I be able to recharge the batteries if I'm camping? Where?
Will I be able to upload pictures to my journal from the road? How?

I did my share of web surfing and reading, and I talked to a lot of my techie friends - software engineers who were also into photography. It was helpful to talk things through with them, but they could only help out with the digital camera questions, not with my on the road questions. I managed to answer my questions before I left for my trip, and if you've read my journal then you know that my decisions worked for me... So why am I writing this article? I thought it might be helpful to gather information about touring and digital cameras into a single place - especially for folks who are in the same place that I was just a short year ago, deciding which camera to buy for an epic journey.

Does this article include the answers for you? Maybe, and maybe not. What I hope it does is present questions along with some possible answers that might make it easier to combine touring and the digital camera revolution.

This article is not... the definitive answer to all of your questions about touring and digital cameras.

This article is... an attempt to help you organize your thoughts and find information that will help answer your questions about touring with a digital camera.

Update on July 4, 2008: When you look at the date that this article was initially written and published (2003!), you may think that you should discount the information in it because digital cameras have evolved during that time.

While there is some information in the article about specific camera models, the camera-specific information is not intended to tell you to buy a particular camera. Instead, I've tried to use the camera information as examples of answering my questions about the features I want in my camera(s).

Yes, the cameras referenced in this article belong to a single brand. Why? Because the cameras that share my life all bear the Canon name. This is my (current) preference. Keep in mind that there are many manufacturers of good quality cameras out there, and a different manufacturer's camera may have your name on it.

I hope that those of you who are searching for the perfect camera companion for your tours will find some helpful information here.

Selecting a camera

...or how to cull out your required features

I've always traveled with a camera... I've used both 35mm and APS film in the past with good results. I could have set out on my Boston to Oregon trek last year with a film camera, but I was really ready to join the digital camera world.

I take pictures in an attempt to capture some memories, to remind myself of the things that I've seen, and to share my wonder with friends and family. I also enjoy surrounding myself with images of beautiful places - I often have pictures from my vacations blown up and framed, and placed on my walls. That habit at least partially dictated the type of camera I'd want to own.

There are an unbelieveable number of cameras available. In the hopes of narrowing my search, I started with a few requirements. I'm sure that your requirements will be different - but maybe seeing my requirements will help you come up with your own.

My desired camera:

The camera resolution should be 4 megapixels. Some people told me that I'd be happy with a 2 megapixel camera, and if my goal was only to post photos on the web, that would have been fine. But since I figured I'd also want to enlarge some of the pictures, I knew I'd be happier with a 3 or 4 megapixel camera. Both were readily available when I was doing my search - but I figured I'd be happier for a longer period of time with a higher resolution, so that became part of my criteria.
Update in August, 2006: Keep in mind that this requirement was from my initial camera search in 2002. At that time the megapixel choices were somewhat limited, and came no where near the number of options available as of now.
Size matters to me when I'm touring - so I looked for a compact or ultra-compact camera. If I'm going to take pictures, I need to have my camera close at hand. I don't use a handlebar bag, so I usually carry my camera in a very small fanny pack. My new digital camera needed to comfortably fit in my Caribou Mountaineering Maui fanny pack, which measures 13 x 5 x 3 (inches). A friend of mine has a similar requirement - but he likes to carry his camera in his jersey pocket. That makes size important to him too.
When the camera is off - with the lens closed - the front of the camera should be flat. I wanted to be able to easily slip the camera into small places - again making it easy to carry in my Maui fanny pack.
My preferred digital media is the Compact Flash. This was for a couple of reasons. I thought that Compact Flash was a more widely used media (probably not true...), and I knew that the handheld computer that I planned to use has a slot for a Compact Flash card. It turns out that the second reason wasn't really valid either because my handheld also takes a PCMCIA card, which means I could put any of the available digital media in the handheld as long as I bought a PCMCIA adapter for the appropriate media. My other reasons for wanting Compact Flash as media were that you can purchase large cards - up to a gig of space, and that the media is not fragile. A friend of mine started in this digital camera world with a camera that used SmartMedia, and he was quite unhappy with it. Not only was the media very fragile, the largest card available is 128 meg. Compact Flash was definitely my first choice!
Update in October 2006: I am still very happy with my choice of CompactFlash as media, doubly so since my digital SLR also uses this media. However, if I was buying a camera in 2006 and I wasn't considering the possible addition of an SLR in the future, I would probably also consider SD (SecureDigital) cards.
My preferred power source is a standard battery. I didn't want to have to deal with the charging issue, and I hoped to find a camera where I could use either a standard or a rechargeable battery.
I wanted a camera with at least a 2x and probably a 3x optical zoom. A digital zoom in addition to an optical zoom is acceptable - but a digital zoom instead of an optical zoom is not.

Of course I didn't get everything that I wanted... I really wanted a Canon Digital Elph, but at the time it only came in a 2 megapixel version. That didn't match my first requirement, so I moved on... So how did I decide? I was able to get my list of cameras down to a reasonable number based simply on size. I knew that I wouldn't be happy with a large camera, so I figured that was a good place to start. I began by looking at cameras classified as compact or ultra-compact, and I only kept cameras in the list that supported a resolution of 3 megapixels or larger. My serious "look at camera" list came down to 3 cameras - the Canon S40, the Pentax Optio 430, and the Olympus D-40. I looked at detailed reviews of all three cameras at the Digital Photography Review web site. Then I went to a camera shop and looked at the cameras in person. I just needed to hold them in my hands, look at the controls, and look through the cameras - and I needed to compare them side-by-side. It turned out that the shop I visited only had the Canon and the Olympus in stock. I was kind of on the fence about the Pentax anyhow after reading the review, and I didn't want to go rambling around until I found a shop with all three cameras in stock. While I liked the look and feel of the Olympus, the full review plus comments from users stated that the camera had severe chromatic aberations - meaning that pictures often had purple fringing around things, especially when the pictures were backlit or were taken in bright sunlight. That's not a good feature for a camera to be taken on tour. I liked the feel of the Canon S40, and I liked the features of the camera (with the exception of it requiring a proprietary rechargeable battery), and I had been very happy with the optics of my Canon film camera. I left the shop wanting to do some more reading and thinking, but ultimately the Canon S40 was my camera of choice!

I have to admit that I was one of those bad shoppers though - I looked at the cameras at a shop, but I bought it on the Internet. If the price had been close, I would have happy to give the shop my business, but the price wasn't close. Around the time that I was looking at cameras, there was a $100 price drop for the Canon S40 at web outlets, but no corresponding price drop at brick & mortar stores. In addition, Dell Computers was (as usual) offering a 10% disount and free shipping on software and peripherals (including cameras). I couldn't beat that price, so I bought the camera from Dell.

Some things to think about as you wander through all of your camera selections...

Do you have a target price range?
Do you want the ability to override settings (exposure, etc.)?
What do you plan to do with your pictures? The answer to this question can help identify what resolution you need. Remember that generally cameras with higher resolutions (megapixels) are more expensive than those with lower resolutions.
Will you primarily be printing snapshots (4x6 or 5x7) and posting pictures on a web site? Or do you plan to enlarge your photos?
Do you care about size? The answers to the following questions might help with the camera size decision.
- Where do you carry your camera when you bike?
- Do you use a handlebar bag?
- Do you use a small fanny pack like I do?
- Do you stash your camera in your jersey pocket?
Do you want to be able to use filters on your camera?
Do you want to be able to use different lenses?
Do you want a camera that is water-resistant? Or one that has a case that can be used to make your camera water-resistant or water-proof? Jamie Noble was looking for a camera that was water-proof without an additional case. He bought a Pentax Optio 33WR - check in with him if this is something that interests you!
Do you have a preference as to media type (CompactFlash, SecureDigital, etc.)?
Do you prefer a rechargeable (proprietary) battery or do you want to be able to use "off the shelf" batteries?
Do you care whether your camera has an optical viewfinder in addition to the electronic LCD panel? While the LCDs have improved over the years, there are still some lighting conditions where I find the optical viewfinder to be useful.

What? You bought another camera?

I now know the answer to the question "what would I buy if I were buying a camera now?" - in 2004 as opposed to 2002!

I used to think that owning one of something would be enough, but that's just not true for me. Canon came out with a 4 megapixel version of the Digital Elph last year, which it is the camera I really wanted when I started this digital journey. I rejected it back in 2002 because the highest resolution at the time was 2 megapixels. But I was still lusting over a smaller camera...

I gave in last month (yes, in 2004!), and bought my second digital camera, the Canon S400. I'm still very happy with my S40, but the smaller size of the S400 (and the corresponding drop in weight) was what drove me to the second camera. This camera also takes Compact Flash cards, so I can continue to use the same media. The S40 weighs 11.4 ounces, and the S400 weighs 7.9 ounces. The weight for both includes the battery and media, an apples to apples comparison. The size? The dimensions of the S40 are 4.4 x 2.3 x 1.7 inches, and of the S400 are 3.4 x 2.2 x 1.1 inches. I know that the size and weight differences don't sound like much but it actually feels like a big difference.

As far as the camera features go, the S40 and S400 are not an exact match, but almost all of the features on the S40 are also available on the S400.

The pictures - the S400 also makes beautiful pictures. You can see some examples in my Sedona picture gallery. The pictures there were taken in somewhat poor weather conditions - I had a day of sun, a day of rain, and a day of snow on my quick escape hiking trip there. But no regrets on the unexpected weather conditions - bad light conditions make for good camera testing conditions!

The one big plus with the new camera is that the LCD technology has improved. One of my biggest complaints with my S40 - was that I couldn't see the LCD in bright sunlight. I could use the viewfinder for focusing purposes, but I still needed to use the LCD for the camera settings. The improved LCD on my new camera allows me to adjust the brightness and is also much more visible in bright daylight.

My other complaint with the S40 was that I couldn't focus close enough to get the detailed wildflower pictures that I like. The macro focus on the S400 is 5cm, while the macro focus on the S40 is 10cm. That's not a huge amount, but it makes a big difference.

The only negative I've found so far is with the photographer. The camera is so small and light it makes me think that I can hold it out at arm's length with one hand and take good pictures. That's really not a good idea - I need to remind myself that two hands are better than one when I want good focused pictures!

Of course, as soon as you purchase any digital technology, it's immediately obsolete. Soon after I purchased the S400 Canon announced the S410 (which appears to be an update to my camera, but who knows what was changed!) and the S500, a 5 megapixel version of the same camera. But - I'm still happy with my new "baby" camera.

Update on July 4, 2008:

The camera number has changed, but this camera lives on in Canon's Digital Elph line, bearing the designation SDxxx, or SDxxx IS. IS is an indication that the camera has image stabilization.

I purchased one of these cameras for my sister back in 2007, and this is still a sweet camera. The current inception of this camera is a tiny bit smaller than the camera I bought back in 2004. And it still takes beautiful photos.

Zoom

Optical vs. digital zooms, or be very careful!

My camera has a 3x optical zoom, with an additional 8x digital zoom. On a camera with both optical and digital zooms, the two are used in combination. First the optical zoom is used, then the digital zoom is tacked on.

The optical zoom is the same type of zoom that you find on a film camera. It creates higher quality images than a digital zoom, which is really just manipulating the image rather than using a lens to allow you to get closer to your subject. I almost never take photos using the digital zoom. In my experience, the photos taken with the digital zoom are definitely not as clear as those I've taken with the optical zoom only.

If you know you'll use a zoom lens in your travels, make sure your camera has an optical zoom - or make sure you're OK with compromising picture quality by using a digital zoom. I like having both - but I wouldn't be happy with a camera that only had a digital zoom.

Batteries... rechargeable or not?

Jenia Ciomek & I had a discussion on January 7, 2007 about rechargeable batteries. Since I suspect that battery issues come up quite often, I thought it would be a good idea to add some information here.

I have no personal experience with rechargeable "regular" batteries (as in AA, AAA, and other similar batteries) since my cameras use proprietary batteries - but I was able to find what appears to be a good source of information on this type of batteries, an article . Digital cameras (other than SLRs) do have quite a habit of eating batteries, and if your camera uses non-proprietary batteries it still may be a good idea to use rechargeable batteries.

I found a series of web pages written by someone who is touted as being "an avid user of rechargeable batteries". The pages are posted on the web site of the California Integrated Waste Management Board and include information on NiCd and NiMH batteries plus links to sources for both battery chargers and rechargeable batteries.

www.ciwmb.ca.gov/WPW/Power/RechBattInfo.htm

The following information on rechargeable batteries was provided by Brian Huntley on January 7, 2007.

The capacity numbers do make a difference. They're typically made by computing how long the battery would take to discharge at some percentage (30% I think) of their rated load. The load/life graph isn't a straight line for these, so if you're hitting the battery with a lot of short sharp loads, a larger mAH rating will go a lot farther. One set of 2500 mAH cells will, for example, way outlast three sets of 800 mAH cells, if used heavily.
Flashes and zoom lenses are heavy loads. Cameras in general are heavy loads, but zooms and large screens and flashes really add up.
NiMH batteries self-discharge fairly quickly, so if you charged both sets at the same time, then used one the same day and the other the next, the second set would be at a disadvantage. It's a good idea to top them up immediately before use, if possible. Higher capacity batteries may self-discharge faster initially in the same way a hot coffee loses more heat per unit time than a luke warm cup.
Some chargers may shut down charging too early if you mix batteries that need different amounts of charge. If I have to charge 2000 and 2500 mAH cells at the same time, I'll always put the larger ones back in for a bit (with the 2000s removed) after the charger shuts down.

These days, I avoid anything but the highest rating batteries I can find. It's easy to find 2500 mAH AA cells, and 3000s are available. I'd like to find one of those micro-chargers that's not much bigger than a pair of cells, for on-the-road use. If I only charge the pair from my camera, I'm not too concerned about the bells and whistles of the charger. Oh, and don't leave your unloaded NiMH charger plugged in/switched on - it's a bit of an energy hog even when idle, as it has sensors and such that are continuously cycling.

End of information supplied by Brian Huntley

How to find a place to recharge that pesky digital device

One of my big concerns about buying and touring with a digital camera was power. I was used to cameras that used regular batteries. Well, sort of regular - not something as easy to find and (relatively) inexpensive as AA or AAA batteries, but something that I'd probably be able to find in larger towns (probably the 3000-person towns, not the population 600 towns that I kept wandering through as I rode across the country). Since I bought a camera that used a proprietary rechargeable battery, I had to deal with the issue of needing power outlets.

Note that this section also applies if you have a camera that uses "regular" batteries but you have chosen to use rechargeable versions of those batteries.

When I left home last summer I planned to camp most of the time. But I figured I'd stay in a motel or hostel at least once a week, so at worst case I'd have charging capabilities on at least those nights. It turned out that I stayed in motels most of my trip, so I didn't have any power issues at all. If you plan to tour and camp and still use rechargeable batteries, here are some things to think about:

Consider buying an extra battery for your camera. I had two camera batteries with me, which gave me the peace of mind to know that I could easily go several days without needing to charge the batteries. Be careful with this one though - although I often could use the camera for more than one day on a single battery charge, I couldn't pull that off when I was in a drop-dead beautiful place that kept me taking pictures all day long. The first time I got a low-battery notice during the day was at Niagara Falls - but that didn't cause a problem because I was able to just pop my second battery into the camera and keep on clicking away. I recharged both batteries that night. Good to go again! I found it very interesting that the packaging on my extra spare battery recommended carrying 2 to 3 times the batteries you think you are going to need.
Use the viewfinder of your camera instead of the LCD, and turn the LCD off. From what I've read, it appears that using a digital camera with the LCD off will conserve power. This may or may not be a viable option for you. I started out intending to use only the viewfinder - after all the LCD panels are just about useless in bright sunlight. Unfortunately, the LCD on my camera is also the place that menus are displayed to alter camera settings like resolution, digital zoom, self-timer, etc., so I found I used it more often than not, even though I was forced to use the viewfinder to compose my pictures because I couldn't see anything reasonable in the LCD because of the light conditions.
Keep an eye out for power outlets - and use them!
- If you're staying in a private campground you might have an outlet at your site, although it's more likely that you'll be at a tent site without a power outlet. But - private campgrounds usually have power in the bathrooms, and there may be outlets there. Or sometimes they have community rooms you can use, again with power outlets.
- A friend told me that he always used outlets in restaurants. He camped almost exclusively on his cross-country trip, but he ate many meals in restaurants and took advantage of their power while he was eating.
- Do you occasionally wash your clothes in a laundromat? Check for power outlets there too. (I usually washed my clothes out by hand, but I used laundromats every so often to get a better level of clean.)
- Are you stopping at libraries to update your journal? Find an outlet and charge your batteries while you're writing and catching up on email.
Consider trying a solar charger (or a pedal and power device).

If you're traveling in a country other than your own, you may need to bring a plug adapter with you. First you'll need to check the power supply for your toys to see if they can handle the input voltages that you'll be encountering on your journey. If they can - and I suspect that most modern electronics power supplies can - you'll probably need a plug adapter for that country.

Before my Ireland trip, I went searching on the web. I found Travel Oasis. The site has a lot of information about international electrical supplies in addition to their storefront. I ordered a plug adapter late on a Monday night, and had a package waiting for me when I arrived home on Friday. Good service - I'll buy from them again if the need arises.

This page on the TravelOasis site is a good place to start your search for plug adapters. It includes a link to a world electric guide and a world telephone guide so that you can determine what type of plug adapters that you need.

Uploading on the road

...or how much time do you plan to spend on a computer?

OK, next step. You've got some very cool pictures, and you want to post them on your journal so that all of the folks who are following your trip can see what you see. Sounds easy, but it isn't always. There are two problems here. The first is that even with a high-speed Internet connection, uploading large files can take a very long time. And the second is that if you're using a computer in an Internet cafe or a library - it's not likely that you'll be able to install the drivers that are needed for the computer to "understand" your camera.

I attempt to update my journals from the road, but uploading photos? That usually waits until I return home.

For my Boston to Oregon trip in 2002, I kept my journal on a handheld computer and I uploaded my entries every day or two. I wanted to share what I was seeing each day with friends and family, so I tried to upload a couple of pictures each day. I was using my HP Jornada handheld with a PCMCIA card adapter for a Compact Flash card. My Internet access with this device was always via a dial-up, so uploading pictures was painfully slow, and I was unable to upload pictures that were larger than 2 megapixels via a dial-up connection.

Today with the availability of high-speed connections from the road, this isn't as much of a problem. But I'm still not willing to sit and upload photos while I'm out on the road...

What about high-speed connections at Internet cafes or libraries? Next topic...

Public computers & your camera

...or what do you mean I can't install my camera drivers?

You're using a public computer in an Internet cafe or a library, and the computer doesn't understand your camera - and the owner of the computer won't allow you to install any drivers. You may be very annoyed by being denied the option of installing your drivers, but don't be. It's too easy to introduce conflicts with already installed components on the computer - and there are other options!

There are card readers available that can read your camera's digital media. They hook into the computer's USB port and look to the computer like just another hard drive. If you're looking for a card reader, I recommend doing a search on the web using the search terms "card readers". I just tried that search on March 15, 2007 and came up with quite a list of choices.

In my experience the card readers can be small, weigh next to nothing, and don't use any external power, no battery charging here!

I thought I'd do some photo uploads during my Hawaii trip, but I didn't. I made the decision to shoot everything at 4 megapixels and not bother to switch between 2 megapixels and 4 megapixels and take double shots, so I knew I could only do the uploads if I had a high-speed Internet connection. I was carrying my Zio USB compact flash card reader for this purpose. It turned out that I had high-speed Internet access only while I was at Arnott's Lodge - but I was way too busy playing and exploring to spend the time sitting at a computer. So again, I waited until I got home to upload my pictures.

In between

...small camera, with control

Page added on July 4, 2008

What if? What if you want the controls of a dSLR but you still want to carry a small camera? Yes, there are cameras out there that satisfy that requirement too.

I'm still having a serious love affair with my Canon 40D, but there are times when I'm wandering and I want to have a (small) camera with me, just in case something jumps out in front of me and cries for a photo. I've been walking with a small point-and-shoot, but sometimes that doesn't meet my needs. You're right, if my primary purpose for wandering is photography then I always have my dSLR with me. Sometimes I have a "baby" camera with me too. And sometimes I only carry the "baby" camera...

And yes, you're quite right. I probably do have somewhat of a camera addiction going here!

How did I meet that need? I added a Canon G9 to my camera collection. It's small, it has the same types of scene automatic settings available on point-and-shoot cameras, plus it has the ability to set the camera into full manual mode. That means I can control the shutter speed, the aperture, the...

So - if you want more control but you don't want to carry a big camera, take a look at this class of cameras. I'm sure there are cameras from other manufacturers that fit into this slot too.

The camera takes beautiful pictures. I carried both my G9 and my Canon 40D (dSLR) on my recent trip to Acadia National Park. Take a look at the photos in my journal or in my photo galleries and see if you can tell which camera I used to take the photo.

Oh, OK! If you really want to know which camera I used, you can check in my photo galleries. Hover over a photo, then click Photo Info. A box will pop up showing information like the camera that was used, the focal length of the lens, other stuff too.

Click to see a review of the G9 on the dpreview site.

If you've read any of my journals, then you've probably already met Rover. If you haven't...

Rover approves of my G9. He tells me it is his size camera, that he can use it to take photos for me while we are riding.

Sample photos from a Canon G9

Page added on July 4, 2008

I've included a few sample shots from my G9 below.

Additional photos taken as I learned the capabilities of this camera can be seen in my photo gallery Drawn by....

Taking the next step

A little background... some bad picture-taking days

It's now 2006, and I've been happily shooting away with a digital camera since 2002. If you've read through this article from the beginning, you already know that I was looking for a camera that was small and light, in addition to the more obvious requirement of capturing images well. Yes, you're right, the photographer has a lot to do with the images, but the camera's capabilities are also very important.

My camera decisions along the way were good ones. Overall, I have been very happy with my very compact digital cameras; they take beautiful pictures. But 2005 brought some sights in front of my eyes that would have benefited from a camera over which I had more control.

When? My visit with the puffins on Machias Seal Island during my wander in Downeast Maine, views of the windmills in the northeast corner of Prince Edward Island, and of Hopewell Cape in New Brunswick, both during my fall jaunt by bike in Prince Edward Island...

There were a couple of problems. The first was focus. Today's digital cameras do a pretty good job of focusing on the right thing (that is, at least close to the thing that you as photographer want to be in focus). But there were times, especially on the three days I mentioned, that the camera and I definitely didn't see eye-to-eye on my desired images. And then there was the light, or lack of light. On all three days the visibility and light was marginal - I was trapped in foggy conditions. Having more control over the cameras settings would have been helpful. And a better zoom would have helped too.

The reaction of most people when I told them I was considering another camera was 'but your pictures on those days were beautiful'. Yes, I did get some decent pictures - but I want the ability to get more of them!

It's possible that my experience will be helpful if you're considering an SLR yourself. But if an SLR isn't in your future, this section may not be of interest to you.

It's days and views like this one that convinced me I wanted to play with a digital SLR. I'm hoping this it can help me improve upon photos like this one - a very overcast and somewhat foggy day, with puffins and razorbills posing for my camera.

It was pretty much impossible to convince my little camera that I wanted to focus on the windmill!

A decision, and a new toy

Yes, a digital SLR!

Looking from the outside (of my head, that is) it probably looks like my wonderful purchase was a spur of the moment decision. The truth is, I had been thinking about it for a long time, reading, researching, pondering.

My initial thoughts were to buy my new toy online, but this purchase was a bit more complex than the purchase of my point & shoot cameras. I did a lot of research online, but I also spent quite a few hours in an actual store. I was able to play with the cameras, and more importantly I had someone to talk to who was good at listening to what I intended to do with the camera and who had a very strong knowledge of today's cameras. So yes, amazingly enough, I bought my camera at a bricks & mortar store.

And for those of you who are reading and asking if I could have found the camera and lenses for less money elsewhere, yes, you're absolutely right, I could have. But my feeling was after spending so much time and getting so much good information in the store - well, I couldn't bring myself to buy it elsewhere. It just didn't feel right to me. The service and information and the way I was treated was enough reason (to me, that is) to purchase the camera there.

For anyone in the Boston area, I was very happy with the service and selection at Hunt's Photo and Video. Don't go by the selection on their web site; they seem to have just a small fraction of their inventory available on their site.

My new toy? It's a Canon Digital Rebel XT, also known as the EOS 350D. (I have to admit that I find it rather odd that a single camera is known by different names in different countries. It appears that this camera is known as the Digital Rebel XT in the United States, but is known as the EOS 350D in other countries.)

This camera is Canon's entry level SLR. It has the features that I wanted, plus it is relatively small in the overall world of SLRs. Yes, it's a lot bigger than my compact S400, but that goes with the territory! And I've been very happy with the Canon products that I've used over the years.

The Digital Rebel XT uses Compact Flash (including the option of microdrives), and it is an 8 megapixel camera. I guess it's a good thing that I made the decision to go with a camera that used Compact Flash when I first ventured into the world of digital photgraphy! I find it interesting that as you move up the line of digital SLRs that the megapixels keeps increasing. Eight megapixels seems reasonable to me right now. And I have to tell you, it feels like it takes a lot longer to move my photos from the camera's media to my computer than it did with 4 megapixel photos! Yes, I know that I can take my pictures at a lower megapixel setting. But right now I don't want to sacrifice the ability to print in a large format and retain the quality of my pictures, so I am shooting everything at the full 8 megapixels.

The camera uses a proprietary battery (as opposed to 'regular' batteries that you can buy anywhere). But a nice surprise - it has a nice long life. I was told that it was possible to take 600 pictures on one charge of the battery. I have to admit that I had doubts about the truth of that statement given my experience with my other cameras. I did confirm that thought; my camera managed (with my help, of course) to take somewhere between 500 and 600 pictures before the battery needed to be recharged. I suspect that this long battery life is due the fact that unlike the point & shoot cameras, this camera does not use the LCD panel for taking pictures - settings & focusing are all through the lens.

If you're ready to move into the SLR world, both Nikon and Minolta also have digital SLRs on the market, so there is a brand choice in addition to the choice of cameras within a brand. The world continues to change and revolve towards digital, and I image that there will be more choices in the future.

By the way, did you see Nikon's announcement on January 12, 2006 that they plan to focus on digital cameras and that they intend to stop manufacturing almost all of their film camera line?

The eyes of the camera

What lens?

This camera is available either with a (stock) starter lens, or just as the camera body. Initially I thought I'd buy the camera with the inexpensive starter lens and decide what lens I really wanted after playing with the camera for a bit. I quickly realized that wasn't the right answer for me - so I bought the camera body along with not one, but two lenses.

Part of my initial thought was driven by looking at the price of Canon lenses. Luckily I work with two folks who have been into photography for years and years and years; both of them have 35mm cameras with lots of lenses. They both recommended lenses from Sigma and Tamron as good quality with both manufacturers having some reasonably priced options (in addition to their top end choices).

Once I mentally made the leap to looking at lenses in addition to the camera, I knew that I wanted a decent zoom lens - one that I am capable of using without a tripod. And I knew that I wanted to be able to take close-up shots too - mainly of plants & flowers.

Starting with the zoom

A little background Because of the smaller size of the sensor in a digital SLR as compared to 35mm film, a focal length modifier of 1.5 is used to identify the equivlent lenses on a digital SLR and a 35mm SLR. That is, a 200mm lens on a digital SLR is the equivalent of 200 * 1.5, or a 300mm lens on a 35mm camera. The sales rep at the camera store treated me to this explanation, and I later found an explanation along with supporting photographs at http://www.dpreview.com/learn//key=focal+length+multiplier

I played with two Sigma lenses, both of which were designed for use with digital cameras.

A lens that was designed for a 35mm camera can be used on a digital camera, but the reverse is not true; a lens designed for use on a digital camera can only be used on a digital camera.

I started with the longer of the two, the 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC. This lens has a zoom ratio of 11:1. That would be nice, but I was unable to hold the camera steady with the lens fully extended. I would have needed to carry and use a tripod with this lens, so I quickly ruled it out. The other lens I tried was the 18-125mm F3.5-5.6 DC. This lens has a zoom ratio of 6.9:1, still not bad from a zoom standpoint - especially considering that my S400 has only a 3x zoom. And, most important, I was able to take pictures with the lens fully 'zoomed' with no shake. Another option would have been to go with a lens with built-in image stabilization - but remember, I was trying to keep my purchase within a somewhat reasonable price range. (OK, OK, buying a digital SLR and two lenses really doesn't fall within reasonable, but still )

First lens decision made: the Sigma 18-125mm F3.5-5.6 DC was my choice for my everyday lens. Using the focal length modifier, that's the equivalent of a 187mm lens, not a bad zoom.

On to the macro lens

I really enjoy taking pictures of flowers - and not just flowers in a group, but details of the petals, or the leaves, or a bee happily feeding within a flower.

My S400 has a macro setting that supports taking pictures of objects 5cm (just under 2 inches) from the camera. The closest the zoom lens I bought can get is 1.6 feet (48 cm). That's not going to make me happy.

Since I'm likely to take both the S400 and my new camera when I'm cycling, I could use the S400 for all macro shots. But then again, I still want the abiilty to focus manually - which means I would be happier with a macro lens.

I ended up buying a Canon macro lens; that lens was very close in price to the non-Canon options for my camera, and from a quality standpoint the two lenses were equal. But this time price did come into the picture; at the time I bought my camera there was a very good Canon rebate program running. It was a little wacky in that each item covered by the macro had a rebate price associated with it. But - if you bought 2 (rebate items), the rebate for each was doubled. That made it an easy decision to go with the Canon macro lens!

Uh oh! Lens lust emerges

Update on July 8, 2007

Lens lust, serious lens lust... I've known for a while that I wanted a big zoom lens for my camera, because sometimes I see things that I want to capture that are just too far away. Sometimes I've been very lucky to capture images of birds or wild animals. Sometimes they seem to wander closer to me without me moving an inch - like the day the mute swans wanted to play. Other times I can't get close enough, like the gray day not too long ago when I really wanted to capture some shore birds running along the ocean. A couple of sea gulls posed for me, but the little running birds wouldn't let me get close enough. My desire for a long lens was somewhat tempered by my requirement that the lens be of a size and weight that I would be willing to carry it with me as I wander on my bike. That made my decision more than a little challenging.

When I bought my everyday lens I knew that if I ever gave in to my dreams and got a longer lens that I wanted a lens with built-in image stabilization (IS). A monopod may still be in my future, but I really wanted a lens that I could just grab and use, even when I'm wandering on my bike. I have enough room to stash another lens on the bike, and yes, I'm sure that a monopod will fit too, but for now...blockquote>And I have to say - the image stabilization is awesome. Without IS I would not have a chance of hand-holding these lenses and getting photos that are in focus. With IS, getting in-focus shots is easy. Of course my reaction to this technology is that any lenses I buy in the future will most likely be IS lenses!

I had my eye on Canon's IS lenses. I had the shock of my life when I first priced them. I was looking for the Canon 100-400 IS zoom but I had inadvertantly selected the 400 IS prime lens. It was $6500! Uh, wait a minute... I'm not a professional photographer, and that's way out of my range for playthings. I sort of accepted that I wasn't going to get a new lens, but I couldn't let it go. I went back a few days later and priced the lens that I really wanted. Yes, it was still very pricey, and if I hadn't seen the price of the 400 IS I might have thought it was out of line. But hey, in comparison with $6500, the price of $1310 for the Canon 100-400 IS lens seemed almost reasonable.

I kept going back and forth, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes! I finally gave in and ordered the lens. Should I have bought it locally so I could feel it on my camera before the purchase? Maybe. I looked on the web sites of the two larger photo shops in the area, and neither of them showed any trace of my dream lens, so I ordered my new toy from B&H Photo in New York. (I later saw an ad for one of those local shops that included my dream lenses, but ordering from B&H meant that I didn't need to spend time driving to odd locations to check out the lens.) B&H is usually very fast in filling orders, and they are a very reputable photo shop. I've ordered small things from them before, never something as big as this lens.

My wait wasn't too long. I had selected the least expensive shipping method, which was tagged as 3-5 days via UPS. I placed my order on a Wednesday, it shipped on Thursday, and the lens was in my hands on Friday. I'm sure that it helped that my north of Boston location isn't that far (from a shipping standpoint) from the B&H warehouse in Brooklyn.

I headed to the coast early Saturday morning to play. I figured the sea gulls would be willing to pose for me, and they were. The lens took amazing pictures. And yes, I will take some credit for the photos since I was the one who was driving it! The image stabilization was wonderful, but... and this is a big but! The lens is big, and it's heavy, and even though I knew the size and weight when I ordered it, it didn't really hit home until I attached it to my camera and started working with it.

The big question for me was - given the size and weight - will I be happy taking it with me as I travel on my bike, and will I switch lenses during the day to give me the best of both worlds? The lens switch is the smaller of the two concerns, and I do believe that I will happily flip lenses to match my photo dreams. But the weight and size of the lens really got to me.

I played with the lens, and I thought, and I thought, and I thought.

After many hours of switching from "no, it's not the lens for me (right now)" to "well maybe it is, it takes beautiful bird shots" to "yes, of course I should keep it" and back to "no, it's not right (for me) for now", I finally decided to go with my gut, return the lens, and try to find a reasonable replacement. After all, I know that I really do want a longer-reaching lens, and I know that I need to be happy carrying the lens with me on my bike. And I looked for other answers. I found a lens that looks very interesting to me, but the reviews I found were very mixed.

I decided that the only way to see if the good reviews or the bad ones matched the lens behavior was to try the lens myself. I ordered a Canon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS in the hopes that it would be the right answer. According to the Canon web site, "Diffractive Optics elements are combined to reduce size and boost image quality". The difference in size and weight is amazing. The Canon 100-400 IS lens weighs 3 pounds and is 7 inches long at it's shortest length. The Canon 70-300 DO IS lens weighs 1.6 pounds and is 3.9 inches long. That sounded a lot more reasonable to me from a weight standpoint.

The lens showed up on Tuesday, giving me the holiday Wednesday to play. The light was a little funny that day, and I wanted some sunshine to complete my test. On Saturday the lens jumped into a bag on my bike and happily came out to play as I spotted things along the road.

My impression after playing with the lens on 2 different lighting condition days is that it is a good choice for me for right now. It takes beautiful pictures, but it appears to sometimes need a little more care and attention to get properly exposed good shots than the 100-400 did. Based on what I've seen so far, I think (I hope!) that I will be happy with the lens.

Only time will tell whether I made the right decision!

Curious about diffractive optics? Here's a link to as explanation of the technology: Canon Diffractive Optics.

This picture should give you an idea of the size differences between the lenses. The lens to the left is the Canon 100-400 IS, and the lens to the right is the Canon 70-300 DO IS.

Actual sizes as noted on the Canon web site are:

Canon 100-400 IS: 3.6" x 7.4", 3.1 lbs. / 92mm x 189mm, 1,380g
Canon 70-300 DO IS: 3.2" x 3.9", 25.4 oz. / 82.4mm x 99.9mm, 720g

Zoom decision... so how did you decide?

Page added on June 10, 2007

My ultimate decision jumped out quickly, but somewhere in the back of my mind I had been thinking about zoom lenses for quite a while. Once I convinced myself that I really wanted a lens, and that I would really use it, I started comparing products.

My requirements were relatively simple: that I be able to (at least attempt to) grab photos of some of the elusive wildlife that I see when I'm wandering on my bike, and that I be able to hand-hold the lens.

My hand-hold requirement sent me right into the Canon lens family. Image stabilization sounded like a good thing to me.

The first lens I tried, the Canon 100-400 IS, took beautiful photos. From a quality standpoint, this lens got a resounding "yes" to the question "is it right for me?". But - the size and weight didn't feel right for me for right now. It wasn't so much the size and weight while I was using the camera as much as it was facing the question "will I always take this lens with me when I travel?". I was going back and forth so much on the decision that when I finally made myself face the issue I realized that I was going to be fighting with myself over carrying the lens. That's not the right attitude to have towards something that is supposed to be fun to have and to use. And that's why I decided to return the lens and continue my search.

So how did I make that decision? I finally listed the things that were important to me:

The lens needed to allow me to pull small creatures into my photos. 300 to 400mm sounded good to me.
The lens needed to be of a size that I would be happy always carrying it with me - in addition to my standard lens, of course.

Questions you need to ask yourself:

Why do you want the lens?
Does the lens you are looking at satisfy your "why?" criteria?
Does the lens take pictures that make you happy (quality)
Do the lens characteristics - including size & weight - meet your needs?

Remember, there are no answers here!

Which camera will be joining me on my bike?

Both of them, of course!

My current plans are to continue to use my Elph since it fits so nicely in a tiny fanny pack. For those quick cycling stops, that camera is still perfect. The Rebel will be hiding (not too far away) in my pannier or trailer and will jump out for the more complicated shots.

But is there room?

Of course there is! I did both of my tours last year with panniers on my rear rack only - and I used my smaller front panniers. I believe that there will be room for my small camera case in those panniers, but I can always use the larger pair of panniers if necessary. And when I'm traveling with my trailer, I'm sure that I can make room in the trailer for my camera and extra lens. This is just not going to be a problem!

Quick update, May, 2006:I still may carry my Rebel in one of my panniers or in my trailer while touring, but I just added a rack pack to my stash of on-the-bike carrying options. I went with an Arkel TailRider, with my purchase decision based solely on having a safe place to carry my camera. You can find more information on my decision-making process on this page of my Panniers, a trailer, both? article.

What time is it?

Update on May 8, 2006: I've never really cared if the time on my camera was exactly right; changing it to reflect daylight savings time just didn't seem important to me. But one of my cameras definitely got the better of me on my quick trip last weekend. My digital Elph continued to keep the time based on the last time that I checked and set it - and the Digital Rebel XT adjusted itself for Daylight Savings Time. I was alternating, using both cameras - and when I sorted the photos by the time they were taken they weren't in the order I expected. The mystery was solved today when I thought to look at and compare the date stamp in the two cameras. Of course I reset the Elph so that it now is on Daylight Savings Time too. I'll just have to remember to make the corresponding change when the clocks switch again in the fall.

A first day of experimenting

...wandering along the New Hampshire coast

My goal on the day in January when I ventured out with both cameras was to take photos for comparison. I was going to try to take the same pictures with both cameras. Well, that really wasn't a realistic goal on the first day that I was really wandering with my new camera. I did manage a few comparison shots, but most of the pictures that were taken with the Digital Rebel XT. The comparison photos that I did take served as a reminder that both cameras take beautiful pictures.

The first examples on this page were taken on a cold winter's day, wandering by foot - no bike this time - along the New Hampshire coast.

A mute swan and a duck, along with reflections and ripples...
photo taken with Canon Digital Rebel XT

photo taken with Canon Digital Rebel XT

photo taken with Canon S400

photo taken with Canon S400

You may notice the difference in size between the 2 pictures that were taken with the SLR, and the 2 that were taken with the compact camera. The reason for this is not that I cropped the photos, but that the aspect ratio between the two types of cameras is different. Most digital SLRs produce photos with the same aspect ratio as a 35mm film camera - an aspect ratio of 3:2. And most point & shoot digital cameras produce photos with an aspect ration of 4:3.

More photos from my experiments that short afternoon along the New Hampshire coast can be found in my photo gallery.

Continuing to play...

...in southern California this time!

I used a weekend in southern California as an excuse to do some more playing with my new camera. This time, only my new SLR accompanied me - but I was carrying both lenses.

Hey - what are you doing down there on my walk?

This crazy dog was on a porch on the second floor of a house. Photo courtesy of the zoom lens!

More photos from this trip can be seen in my photo gallery.

Click, click, click... this camera is fast!

There's another big difference between my cameras, and that is speed. The Digital Rebel XT is amazingly fast. And as I found when I gave in to my desired and bought another dSLR in early 2008, my Canon 40D is even faster!

From the Canon web site, on the Digital Rebel XT:

"Fast 3 frames-per-second shooting with a 14 frame burst and 0.2 second startup time - The EOS Digital Rebel XT was designed from the ground up to be faster and more intuitive than the Digital Rebel. From the ultra-fast 0.2 sec. startup time, shutter release lag of 100 msec. and viewfinder blackout time of 175 msec., the Digital Rebel XT will never keep you waiting. A new high speed shutter shoots at speeds of up to 1/4000 sec. for up to 14 shots and synchronizes with your flash at 1/200 sec."

My experience with this camera makes me believe the manufacturer's statistics. I shot the photos below as this family of Canada Geese (mom, dad, and 5 goslings) moved from the water to land. My camera just kept quickly capturing images. What fun!

I know from experience that my baby camera doesn't cycle this fast so I wouldn't be able to capture the same sequence of photos with that camera. Of course the speed at which the camera captures images probably doesn't matter for most of the photos I take when I'm touring - but it certainly helps when I see animals (or sometimes people doing strange and wonderful things) that I'd like to capture as a memory.

Ah... another dSLR!

Page added on July 5, 2008

Ah... camera lust overcame me (again). I spent quite a bit of time arguing with myself about upgrading my dSLR. Well, really, I was arguing with myself about it for what seems like a very long time. This past February I finally decided that I was being silly. My camera is not an occasional use item; it travels with me, and it jumps into my hand as I wander near home. It's my constant companion.

I ordered my new toy from B & H Photo, and it arrived very quickly. I played with it a bit immediately - in my house, since it was winter and dark outside - just enough to get familiar with the menus and controls, not enough to learn about all of the new options available to me. At first I felt a bit overwhelmed by the options, but then I pulled myself back into a happy, sane state. And keep in mind that I was moving up from another dSLR made by the same manufacturer - and I still felt overwhelmed!

My first outing with my new camera was to take pictures, not to learn everything about the camera in one fell swoop. Once I became familiar with the placement of the controls and settings on the camera, I started exercising the capabilities of the camera. I'm still learning four months later, and I suspect that learning will never stop.

And wow! This camera is fast! I could immediately see a difference just in the simple things, and I learn more each time that I play.

Yes, I know I can and should take some credit for the photos that I get with this camera. But I believe that the camera has helped too.

The negatives? This camera is a little larger (and a little heavier) than my previous dSLR. For some that is a positive. The slightly smaller camera fits a in a smaller space as I'm wandering on my bike.

But the positives far outweigh any negatives. My first choice of camera companion is my 40D.

Click to see a review of the 40D on the dpreview site.

My first photos taken with this camera can be seen in my Camera insists on an ocean visit photo gallery.

Most of the photos from my June 2008 trips to Zion and Acadia National parks were taken with this camera. (Yes, some were taken with my G9, but the 40D was much more active!). You can see photos from this camera in my Acadia captured journal and photo galleries, and in my Red rocks glowing journal and photo galleries.

And new lenses too...

Canon 24-105 IS (all around) plus Canon 10-22 (wide!)

Page added on July 5, 2008

OK Denise, no one cares what lenses you are using on your camera! Or do they?

There have been some lens questions in my guestbook and via direct emails, so I'm going to continue to include some additional lens info here.

A lens is the eye of your camera. If you already have a dSLR and you're trying to make a decision between buying a new camera and buying a new lens, the general rule of thumb is to buy the lens first, that you will get more effect for your money. That said, that will really only work for you if you plan to stay with the same family of camera bodies. Why? Because a lens that fits on a Canon camera will not work on a Nikon, or a... It may still be possible to have a lens altered to adapt it for a different manufacturer's body, but I probably wouldn't go that route.

Canon 24-105 IS, a great all-around lens

This is a sweet lens that lives on my camera for a good chunk of this time. It's my all-around lens, and if I'm wandering with only one lens chances are very good that this is my choice.

All of the photos in my Schoodic wonder gallery (from my June 2008 journey to Acadia National Park) were taken with the Canon 24-105mm lens. A few example photos are shown below.

Canon 10-22, wide, wide wide!

And yet, sometimes... I want a lens for wide-open landscape shots. This lens gives me that wide open capability. And yes, there really is a huge difference between a shot at 24mm (the minimum with the lens above) and 10mm.

This lens can only be used on a crop-sensor camera. In the Canon line, that is the Rebel series of cameras and the xxD cameras (for example, my 40D). It is the equivalent of a 16-35mm lens on a full-sensor body.

All of the photos in my Plum Island afternoon gallery were shot with the Canon 10-22mm lens.

But, but... How many lenses can I carry?

Page added on July 5, 2008

There are really two questions here - how much room do you have for your camera equipment, and how many of the lenses will you really use?

If I'm heading out on a trip where my primary purpose is photography I'm likely to carry and use more lenses than I do if my primary purpose is cycling. Lately my trips are a blend of touring and photography, so I need to think about this.

On my June 2008 wander in Acadia National Park, I was taking day trips as opposed to traveling on my bike. I had two cameras with me - my Canon G9, and my Canon 40D. I was carrying three lenses for the 40D, a 10-22mm, a 24-105mm, and a 70-300mm. I used all of the lenses on this trip - but I was not carrying them on my bike. On any given ride I had the G9 in a fanny pack for quick shots, and the 40D plus maybe one lens in my TailRider. My choice of on-the-bike lenses was usually the 24-105mm on the camera with the 10-22mm riding along for quick changes.

If I'm on a trip where my transportation is my bicycle, then I think hard about my photography toys (OK, OK, maybe I should call them tools and not toys!). I always take a small point-and-shoot camera with me. That camera is carried in a fanny pack so if I see something interesting I can quickly put a foot down and grab the camera. (I know that many folks use a handlebar bag for this purpose, but I don't use one.) I always take a dSLR which is usually carried in a rack trunk. I sometimes carry a second lens for the dSLR, also carried in the rack trunk.

My longer lenses have built-in image stabilization. This means that for the most part I can get away without a tripod. But a tripod could be very useful for some shots. For right now, I'm traveling without one. But that could change at any moment.

How many lenses? Only you can answer that question. But on the way to answering that question, here are a few more for you:

Will you use all of the lenses that you are carrying?
Do you have room to carry them?
Will the added weight of your camera equipment prove to be too much for you as you are happily pedaling along?
If you're carrying expensive camera gear, do you have an off-the-bike bag you can use to take them with you as you are wandering off of your bike? I don't know about you, but my camera equipment doesn't get left alone in a camp site!

Hold the camera in your hands

Page added on July 10, 2007, minor update on July 5, 2008

There are many cameras out there, and so far I've talked mainly about camera features. It's likely that the capabilities of the camera will drive your decision, but there is also the "feel" test. That is, does the camera feel right to you?

I highly recommend holding a camera before you buy. Pick it up, use the LCD for focusing, look through the viewfinder (if the camera has one!), click the shutter. In my experience, camera shops will have demo cameras available to help you get a good feel for the camera. You probably won't be able to pull the photos off of the camera media to check the picture quality, but seeing how the camera feels in your hands can be a big help.

An example from my own experience: when I bought the primary lens for my digital SLR, it's likely that I would have bought the wrong lens (for me) if I hadn't taken the opportunity to use the camera in the camera shop. The lens I was playing with was too big for me to hold steady without a tripod or monopod, and I knew that was the wrong decision for me at the time.

Even a compact camera is worth a quick test drive. Maybe you think that you want a tiny camera - but when you feel it you realize that it is too small for you. The opposite could be true too.

And then there are issues like shutter delay. I mentioned the speed difference between my digital SLR (a Canon EOS 350D) and my baby point-and-shoot (a Canon S400) on the Click, click, click... page of this journal. I didn't go into any details there, just mentioned that my digital SLR is much faster than my point-and-shoot. George White noticed this, and posted these entries in the guestbook:

...effect of the delay between pressing the button and capturing the picture. It is a point well worth bringing out, especially for those of us currently moving from film cameras (where the shutter fires when you press the button) to digital where there is a significant delay.

The difference isn't that much if you have things already focused (by half pressing the shutter release), on your camera its down to 95ms (.095 Sec), on my 2 year older camera its approx double that at 182 ms (Olympus C765). The real difference is from just pressing the button - on my camera its 1.11/1.21 Sec, its 200 - 240 ms for your EOS 350D.So for both cameras the delay can be minimised by half releasing the shutter and having the lens already autofocused.

George is absolutely right that this needs to be considered in your choice of camera. My dad bought a point-and-shoot that had such a long lag that the camera was essentially unusable. If he had tried the camera first (by playing with it in a shop), this problem should have been uncovered then, not after he purchased the camera.

Oh, but you want to buy your camera on the web? That may be the best place to buy from a price standpoint, as I found when I bought my point-and-shoot cameras. In that case, I have a couple of suggestions.

Buy from a reputable site that has a good return policy and a stellar reputation for customer service.
If a friend or acquaintance has a camera that interests you, ask if you can hold it to get a feel for it.
Read reviews to get a general sense of the camera.

I bought my (first) digital SLR in a bricks & mortar store, but I recently bought a zoom lens for that camera online. I chose B&H Photo for my purchase, and had no problem returning the first lens that I bought. That return was for a refund, although I did buy the replacement lens from them. I didn't want to wait for the return process to get the new lens sent out to me (yes, I am impatient!), so I just trusted that they would quickly issue a refund for the returned lens. They did. (In early 2008) I bought my Canon 40D (yes, a new dSLR!) and new lens from B&H Photo. These items should certainly be easily available from a store closer to home, but... I hate shopping, and I hate spending time driving to stores. I knew what I wanted, and based on past performance I also knew that B&H would deliver my new toys to me quickly. So... another online purchase was made!

For more on shutter delay, here's a link to an article on the Adorama site: Not all digital cameras "think alike".

Summary, or Are you still confused?

Maybe my ramblings have helped you to solve your touring with a digital camera questions and issues. Maybe I've just created more confusion by mentioning questions you didn't even know you had!

There are a lot of cameras out there - there are 21 manufacturers listed on the Digital Photography Review site, and while there are a couple that only list one or two cameras, most list significantly more than that. Plus, each one of us has different questions and issues about touring with our digital cameras. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, I don't have all of the answers. Actually, I don't think anyone does!

What do you do now if you still have questions or if you'd like to talk something else with someone who has toured using a digital camera?

Want to do more reading about the new toys that you plan to add to your collection? Two good reading places are:

There are many more sites out there too, but these are the sites I usually go to. Here's what I'd recommend if you still have questions:

Post your question in my guestbook and I'll try to answer it.
Post your question in the Digital Gear forum on this website.
Post your question in the guestbook of one of the authors I've referenced in this article.
Post your question in the Cameras forum on Digital Grin, a photography forum where some very experienced photographers live.

There are enough of us who have some experience with our toys - new or not - that you should be able to get at least one answer. And remember... this decision is yours, not mine, and not the decision of your friends and acquaintances. Make sure that your purchase meets your needs, and your budget. Happy touring - and please share your journeys and your pictures with us!

Updated on July 4, 2008: Added links to Digital Grin, photozone, and dpreview.

Places to find more information

Here are some resources that I've found helpful.

For reviews of cameras, accessories, news, etc., I highly recommend the Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) site. I've found this site to be an amazing source of information - including information on cameras, full reviews of cameras (with apples to apples comparisons), links to camera manufacturer's sites, and links to other digital photography sites.

Other review sites that looks interesting are photozone and Imaging Resources.

Michelle Tomasko recommends the Digital Camera Resource review site. Also, see Michelle's Glacier Waterton Loop journal for her review of the Nikon Coolpix 3100.

If you have questions that you'd like to discuss with experienced photographers, I'd recommend that you visit Digital Grin. It's a photography forum that is hosted by the folks who own SmugMug; the forum is open to anyone, and it's a great place to discuss photography and digital cameras.

Digital photo processing is available at many local photo shops - but if you'd like to upload your files and have the pictures printed on photo paper and returned to you, here are three online vendors:

EZPrints. I tried this site directly, and it wins my vote. I like the color better (I had one picture printed by both EZPrints and Shutterfly, and I really liked the EZPrints print better), and I was finally able to print the panoramic (stitched) shot of the Grand Tetons that I took on my tour in 2002. Very cool. SmugMug uses EZPrints for their photo processing. They switched to EZPrints after doing a 30-month test of a number of processors. EZPrints won from a quality standpoint. But there are two more factors that I think are interesting - they have digital print formats (as noted above for Photo Access), and they print panoramic prints. Sometimes I stitch photos together, and this is the first photo processor that I've been able to find who will print these very long photos. EZPrints will produce prints that are 6 inches high and between 12 and 30 inches long, or prints that are 12 inches high and between 12 and 45.5 inches long. The price on these long prints is based on 6 inch increments, which turns out to be pretty reasonable.

EZPrints recently (in 2008) switched from Fuji to Kodak paper. I ordered some sample prints to check the quality, and the Kodak paper produced a very nice end product.
Shutterfly. I used this service many times before I hosted my photo galleries at SmugMug, and I was happy with both with their service and with the finished photos. They use Fuji paper. (Keep in mind my use of this service is pretty dated; I probably last used it in a 2002 timeframe.
Kodak Gallery. This site was previously called Ofoto. A friend of mine has used this service and is happy with his results. Prints are on Kodak paper.

Folded cards and postcards from your photos: while most of the photo processing sites include the ability to create cards from your photos, I was introduced to NetPost Services from the US Postal Service. You can upload your image, order either cards or postcards, specify a message, and have them mailed directly to your recipients. I initially ordered a card to be sent to myself to check the quality - and it's good. I have been using this service since 2004 (and it's now 2007...) and I have been very happy with it. In fact, I haven't sent a card other than a card made from my own photos in a very long time. You can share pictures that you've uploaded for processing with friends and family - but the photo processing sites usually only show very small versions of the pictures. I've started using a service from SmugMug to share photos. This is a fee service; click http://www.smugmug.com/photos/best-photo-sharing/ for a description of the services available. I started with a standard account but upgraded to a professional account in 2006. There are no limits to the number of pictures you can store in a SmugMug account. Click here to view a link to all of my travel stores - many of which are about my cycling tours. The nice thing here is that people can order prints from your SmugMug albums.

You're in control as to whether people can order prints from your galleries. You can set up some galleries with printing, some without. You can also set passwords, and determine whether your galleries are indexed by search engines. But the point really is that it's under your control.

If you decide to open a SmugMug account for yourself, you can get a $5 discount on your first year's subscription by placing my personal coupon ( llX8NBuQ4l6uQ ) in the 'Referred by' field on the signup form. If you want to upload pictures from foreign computers - that is computers that aren't yours and that don't have the drivers it needs to understand your camera, you may find it helpful to buy a card reader for your camera's media. I have a Zio Dazzle reader that I bought several years ago - but due to the usual craziness and pace of acquisitions in the digital marketplace, that manufacturer no longer exists. If you're looking for a card reader, I recommend doing a search on the web using the search terms "card readers". I just tried that search on March 15, 2007 and came up with quite a list of choices. It might seem like a funny place to look, but if you're pricing digital media for your camera or if you're pricing cameras, take a look on the Dell Computer site. Look under software and peripherals for both media and cameras (and then look under memory for the media). I've found that software and peripherals often have a 10% discount, there are sometimes additional rebates, and at times ground shipping is free.

Where do you keep your digital photos?

...safety in backups

You've finished your tour, and placed your precious digital photos on your computer. Of course you want to reuse the digital media for your camera, so you clear the media and continue shooting more pictures.

The question? Is one copy of your photos enough? What if the hard drive on your computer decides to misbehave and you can no longer access it?

I know that anything can happen in the digital world, and I've always kept backup copies of my pictures. I started out by burning CDs, but as my digital camera insists on taking more and more pictures, I found that CDs became very annoying because of their size. Another option if you like backups on external media is to switch to using DVDs as a backup media. Just for a size sanity check, I looked at a site that sells both types of media. As of October 2, 2005, I found CD capacity at 700MB and DVD capacity at 4.7GB. That's quite a difference.

Another option, and the one that I moved to in 2005, is an external hard drive. I use a Maxtor OneTouch connected to my computer via USB. The drive I bought was listed as 200MB but the actual storage capacity is 189GB.

OF course, that's still within my own home, and off-site storage is a good idea too.

I added a second Maxtor OneTouch drive in May 2006, and it lives (most of the time) in my office - my own personal off-site storage. Why? Well, my home computer is a (circa 2002) laptop with a 30 gig hard drive. That amount of storage was fine until recently. Well really, until I added my new camera and started taking more and more pictures. I finally reached the point where it wasn't feasible to keep all of my photos on my computer in addition to on my Maxtor drive. And part of the reason for the backup drive was to have a second copy of everything (in case of failure). It had also been bothering me that my backup was in the same physical location as my computer. Time for another drive...

I also decided to remove the human piece of backing up my photos (and other files too). I did that by purchasing Second Copy from Centered Systems - http://www.centered.com. I set up the backups to the drive that lives next to my computer to run automatically; the backups to the drive that lives in my office are set up to run manually. And by manually, I mean that I need to click on the backup profile and tell it to run. That's much easier than my previous habit of trying to remember which files were changed or new and needed to be backed up!

If you upload your photos to a site for printing, you could consider that a backup site. Of course that depends on how long the site allows you to leave your photos on the site.

I use smugmug as a way to share my photos with others. In essence, that also serves as off-site storage for the photos that I uploaded. My smugmug galleries (which can be seen at http://denise.smugmug.com) don't contain all of my photos though, so if I really wanted it to serve as a full backup I'd need to upload more of the photos. As of right now, my smugmug galleries contain over 2000 photos, and I don't think that I can deal with uploading all of the photos that are not currently there - nor do I want to bore my viewers with multiple photos of essentially the same thing. But knowing that I have a good sampling of my photos at an off-site location makes me happy.

My earlier galleries have less photos than my later galleries. An example? The galleries that I created for my recent tour of Prince Edward Island contain about 400 of the 800+ pictures I took during my two-week trip.

I have started to see ads for backup services on the web at what appears to be a reasonable cost. I can't give you a recommendation on a specific service since I haven't used one myself, but I was able to generate a list of possible services by doing a search using the words off-site computer storage service. If your backup needs are small (in terms of the amount of storage you need) then using a service might make sense. If your digital camera continues adding to your photo collection, your storage needs may exceed reasonable prices for a service like this. In that case you may be better off with a solution like the one that I chose - using an external drive and storing it off-site.

Update on May 14, 2007: As I noted above, I have photo galleries on SmugMug, so my photos are partially backed up there. I use two external drives for a backup media at home and at my office, but I find there are many occasions when both drives are at home. And what if something happens? OK, OK, I guess I'm just nervous, but really, what if...

The folks who run SmugMug have been very open about the storage mechanism that they use for our photos - Amazon S3 - and recently one of the folks there posted about a tool that could be used to backup files to Amazon. This offsite backup seems (to me) to be a reasonably priced option. If you're interested, here are links to information:

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) - from Amazon's page "Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.".
JungleDisk - tool used to access Amazon S3. This tool is free during beta testing, and is targeted to be available for a $20 one-time fee once beta is completed.
Amazon S3: Show me the money - blog entry about SmugMug's choice of Amazon S3, written by Don MacAskill, SmugMug's CEO & Chief Geek (his wording on the title, not mine!).

Yes, these are commercial services. Not free, but also not in the same space as your computer. If you're looking for external storage in a location other than your home or office, this might be worth a look.

Update on May 29, 2007: Ah, it's a good thing that I had the information on S3 in the back of my mind! Just a week ago, my computer informed me that there were errors on one of my backup disk drives. Uh oh! Now I only have one backup copy, not the two I want to have. And as I said before, having an off-site backup is a very good idea. I signed up for Amazon S3 that day, and I'm in the process of uploading files to S3. Happy...

Update on July 9, 2008: If you happen to be keep photo galleries at SmugMug, your photos have always been backed up in multiple places (since they also use Amazon S3). Last month they announced a new product called SmugVault. This service allows you to backup files other than your photographs. The storage mechanism for this product is Amazon S3. For now I have opted to keep my SmugMug galleries and my full backups separate - since I am already using S3. If I was starting from scratch right now I would probably consider the SmugVault option.

As usual, there are many different answers, lots to think about. But I'd encourage you to keep backup copies of your precious digital pictures.

Denise Goldberg's blog