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?
