Photography

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Digital Photography

Since buying my first digital camera, the Canon Digital Elph S110, in July, 2001, I have become a huge digital photography enthusiast.   I was a skeptic at first but digital photography has come a long way in the past few years and is only going to improve with time.  In 5 short years, I am already on my 7th digital camera.  I replaced my Nikon 6006 with the Nikon Coolpix 5700, a semi-pro built-in lens digital SLR and subsequently the Canon S2 IS.  I considered buying a "real" digital SLR but decided against it as I do not like lugging a lot of equipment around and the relatively smaller size of the 5700 and S2 IS was appealing as well.  It is primarily used for travel photography and for all other instances, I carry around the Canon SD200 Digital Elph and just recently upgraded that to the SD600.  This camera is tiny and I am truly impressed.  Canon has improved many features compared to the older Elphs including an even smaller size, larger display (2.5"), faster processing chip (Digic II), retaining the 3x zoom and upping the video capabilities to 640x480 unimited videos.   

Most of the PhotoPix are taken from the digital cameras I've owned described in the table below.

Date Camera $$$ Specifications Impressions
July
2001		 Canon S110
Digital Elph		 $400 2MP, 2X Zoom, 7 seconds of 640x480 videos Smallest camera on the market at the time.  Does not handle bright outdoor conditions well.  Videos are almost useless.
March
2003		 Canon S400
Digital Elph		 $400 4MP, 3X Zoom, 3 minutes of 320x240 videos Huge improvement w/ great picture quality using the new Digic chip.  This is a solid small camera, the same size as the S110 but with increased zoom and video features.  Took this camera kayaking 3 different times and killed it on the 3rd try.
October
2003		 Nikon Coolpix 5700 $650 5MP, 8X Zoom, videos Love the zoom and relatively compact size for a digital SLR-like camera.  Cannot change lens but i would not need to anyway.  Do not use the video feature as my smaller cameras take on that task.  A little slow to start-up and get out of stand-by mode but a really good travel camera that takes excellent photos.
December 2003 Nikon Coolpix 3700 $400 3MP, 3X Zoom, unlimited 640x480 videos I needed another pocket camera and this one had just come out.  A little smaller and lighter than the Elphs.  The zoom buttons compared to Elph are not as ideally placed but Canon must have a copyright on that.  The movies are in Quicktime format but the great feature is the ability to zoom in videos.
October
2004		 Canon SD200
Digital Elph		 $300 3MP, 3X Zoom, 2" LCD This camera is very impressive and very reasonably priced.  Got it as soon as it was available and love it!  Smaller than previous Elphs, big 2" screen feels much larger than before, nice videos but no zoom during video recording.  Super fast Digic II chip.
August
2005		 Canon S2 IS $450 5MP, 12X Zoom, Image stabilization Great 12x optical zoom (48x combined).  This is now my primary travel camera.  It has a super macro mode that focuses to 0mm that is outstanding as long as you can squeeze enough light into the lens (translucent flowers).  Fast start-up and full manual controls.  Takes AA batteries and the battery life is outstanding.
July
2006		 Canon SD600
Digital Elph		 $300 6MP, 3X Zoom, 2.5" LCD, ISO 800 6MP is overkill on a point and shoot but I got this anyway because the SD200 it replaces is getting worn as I've taken over 13,000 photos with it already.  This is the same size as the SD200 and great for indoors with the ISO800 and increased LCD screen size.

The real benefit of Digital Photography is the instant gratification and shoot as much as you want mentality.  Viewing the composition before capturing the moment is key as everything can be framed and captured exactly as you see it.  In those times when you're in a hurry, just snap away as the photo can always be cropped and rendered after the fact. 

I have had superb 4"x6" shots developed by Ofoto. 

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Last updated on July 06, 2006