I do enough photography that people ask me for advice on cameras. Some time ago I wrote an article about what lenses should I buy for a Canon DSLR which has turned out to be fairly popular. The thrust of that article, by the way, is to convince you that there is only minimal point in buying a DSLR that can changes lenses and getting only one lens for it, even if you plan to get another lens later (after your camera has depreciated plenty without using its real abilities.)
However, many people come with the higher level question of which digital camera to get. There are many cameras, and lots of right answers, but hopefully I give a few in “What Digital Camera Should I Buy?.”
Here, the advice has some specifics and some generalities. Both Canon and Nikon are good, but stick with the major brands so you get accessories and an aftermarket on eBay. And the answer, if you are serious about your pictures, may be to buy more than one. We’ve got three — plus another 2 we don’t use.
Thanks for the tip about the
Thanks for the tip about the Canon G-series. I've been looking for a point & shoot with a fast lens, and I had figured they just didn't exist.
Unfortunately it appears Canon dropped the nice lens form the G9 and G7, and the G6 is discontinued.
Do you know of any other fast p&s models?
Bad News
There don’t seem to be many below f/2.8. Ricoh has an f/2.4 and there are some powershot models at f/2.6 but that’s about it.
This is probably due to them getting better at noise at high ISO, so they can get away with less light, but of course shallow DoF suffers.
Canon are more resilient than Nikon
My friend works for a big company that makes SD cards, and he reports that in their destructive testing labs (taking photos over and over again to judge lifetime of the cards in real operation), the Canon cameras outlast the Nikon ones significantly. This is borne out anecdotally by a friend who shoots horse shows Nikon DSLR breaking down after a few tens of thousands of photos.
Agreeing with what's below
I just don’t hear stories of camera wear-out. Most people never use the camera to the extent that a test-bed like this would. I would prefer to focus on problems that are likely to come bite me.
Pentax
I would like to recommend the Pentax K10D. (I don't get
any money for the recommendation.) 10 MP, more bang for
the buck than any other camera, allows one to use essentially
all Pentax lenses ever made WITH shake reduction (since the SR
is in the camera, not in the lens), nice to use for people
familiar with traditional film-based SLR cameras (most stuff
one needs to change---and one can change a lot---can be done
via various wheels withouth having to go to the menu), has a
dust-reduction system, has the traditional 3:2 ratio for the chip
(which is about half the size of 35-mm film, thus traditional
lenses behave as if they had a longer focal length), can shoot
JPEG and RAW simultaneously.
For those thinking about changing to a digital SLR: Why a SLR and
not a point-and-shoot, apart from higher quality and the ability
to change lenses (the main advantages)? A viewfinder gives one
an immediate view, whereas a display is delayed somewhat. Also,
with a viewfinder one has much higher resolution than a display
(nice if one needs to focus manually). Also, if it is bright,
then one can't see much even in a good display.
Why digital rather than film? The resolution argument for film
is no longer valid, for almost everyone. 5 reasons: shoot like a
pro (take lots of pictures and keep those you want---with film you
have to change film or have several cameras), change sensitivity
("ISO") on the fly (even automatically) (with film you have to change
film or have several cameras), no worries with negatives, you have
the originals in high resolution (you can scan film, but convenient
scanning is low resolution and high resolution is a pain) and finally
it is easy to take a quick picture and upload it somewhere (say, for
selling something on Ebay).
There is a wide range of high-quality lenses and other stuff available
for Pentax digital SLRs.
Pentax is a decent brand
But I still recommend people to stick with the big 2 (as much as I love small brands) because
This doesn’t mean stick entirely with them, but just to count the above things as worth a lot, and thus accept that you might get less camera for the money on initial purchase. If you get a lot more camera for the money with the Pentax (or other brands) and it meets your special needs, by all means go with any brand with a reputation for quality.
re: Canon are (not) more resilient than Nikon
Not sure why one would use a camera to test an SD card (rather than a test deck), but the number of cameras being discarded due to mechanical wear must approach zero: Anecdotal cameras in use on muddy dusty and dangerous race-track environments lasting only a few 10s of thousands of shots excepted :-).
On the "which model is best" front, I am happy with my magnesium framed Nikon P5000. It (and its successor the P5100) are very compact (much smaller than the G9), yet has great hand feel and excellent imaging. Combine that with full manual control and an SLR-style command wheel, plus compatibility with converter lenses and the Nikon flash systems (low light is the enemy of imaging and lack of it the biggest weakness in point and shoot) and you have a great always-there camera. No sign of it wearing out yet :-)
There's a good review with test images here http://imaging-resource.com/PRODS/CP5100/CP5100A.HTM
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