New camera

[beige_alert]

I have a new toy, a Canon A95 digital camera. It has a flip-out, rotating screen, handy for self-portraits:



This is a five megapixel compact camera with a great many more features than I am used to in a camera. My other cameras are manual-focus Nikon SLRs, an FA and an FE2. They have no menus, no fancy modes. They use three tiny button cells that last years.

The A95 will go through batteries much faster, I’m sure. I have a set of 2300 mAhr NiMH AA cells and a very nice Maha charger already. I bought a two-gigabyte “80x” CF card with the camera, $170 after rebate. I remember when one-gigabyte cards were $170. That was, like, a few months ago. The A-series Canons can’t write RAW files, only JPEGs, and 2GB is enough for over 700 full-resolution minimum-compression photos.

Expect lots of photos in the future.

Comments

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with the A95 specifically. I have a good opinion of Canon compact models in general, as compacts go. I will be interested to see how soon and how seriously you become frustrated with the limits of a non-SLR camera, given your background. I went a little over a year on my Nikon compact before I couldn't stand it and got the Rebel.

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

One nice thing about this camera is that it is much smaller than an SLR, so I think it will be very nice for some purposes even once I get a digital SLR. I've just begun playing with it, but I am impressed. It clearly wasn't meant to be used in full manual mode like my SLRs, but if your subject will hold still you can take over manual focus and manual exposure by button pushing. I think I'll be a lot less reluctant to let the computer focus and set exposure automatically with the instant feedback from the screen on the back.

I've just pulled out my tripod and done a few low-light test shots, and it can do remarkably well in near darkness with a 15 second exposure and the 400-speed setting. I went through a phase once where I made lots of multi-minute exposures on 100-speed slide film, and this thing is lots noisier than film but is also lots more sensitive. Not too many years ago digital cameras were useless for 15 second exposures.

Eventually I'll need an SLR and a bunch of lenses, of course. EOS has been out for ages now, so I ought to check the prices on used lenses. All my manual-focus Nikon gear was bought used, some of it back when auto-focus was still kind-of new.