Ooooh, new camera

I’ve owned a number of Canon camera’s over the years including the Powershot G2, Powershot G7, Ixus 70 and Powershot S80. I keep buying Canon because I appreciate the reliability and performance of the camera and think the price premium over other brands is worth it. That said, I have to keep buying new camera’s because I’m generally quite careless and end up dropping them / leaving them in pools of water on holiday!

I have been toying with getting a better camera for a while and borrowed a friends Nikon D200 for a weekend to try it out. The picture quality was so much better than the usual digital compact output - even though some of the digital compacts I own have delivered comparable resolution (megapixels). Common sense indicates that this is for two reasons:

1. For the same number of megapixels, larger sensors generally deliver better results than smaller sensors (explained here much better than I could!)

2. Even the ‘average’ kit lenses bundled with a DSLR are significantly better than the lens built-in to the compact camera. And you always have the option of adding better lenses over time.

Compacts and DSLRs are obviously meant for different scenarios and carry various trade-offs (portability, interchangeable lenses, sensor sensitivity, cost etc). I have every intention of keeping my Ixus 70 for “general portable use” since carrying a DSLR isn’t always welcomed.

The trial of the Nikon confirmed my desire for a DSLR but also confirmed that I didn’t like the Nikon model – it just felt “clunky” to my untrained eye. But this is probably due to my familiarity with Canon cameras in the past, I suspect. I started looking at the range of Canon DSLRs, specifically the 450D, 40D and 5D. The 450D has a spec similar to the 40D with a few minor spec-sheet differences. Having looked at and briefly played with both a shop thought the 40D felt much more solid and ergonomic. The 5D looks nice...But weighs in at around £1,500 including discount for the body only compared to a much more reasonable £600 for the 40D – with a £100 manufacturer rebate on top!

Anyway, this is a long ramble to state that I went for - and am loving - the 40D. It does a great job of hiding the complexities and nuances of photography for beginners whilst providing great accessibility to the advanced features for anyone willing to move away from fully automatic “point and click”.

My Flickr site contains some novice example images (here) taken with this great piece of kit. Now I've just got to remember to keep the damn thing away from water! :)