Round Three

Now we come to the third contender the Canon.

Canon's image is almost as golden as Nikon and you pay dearly for it. But there are lenses aplenty and gear just waiting for you to snap it up.

So why isn't this my first pick?

Well it has fewer bells and whistles than the other two. It has a smaller ISO range, (That's ASA for those old enough to remember Kodachrome and for those who aren't it means how dark you can safely shoot.) faster shutter speeds, more focus points, and it is heavier. Having real heft may not sound like a perk, but it is. It makes you feel like you are using a REAL camera.

So why recommend it at all?

There are hundreds of lenses available and the South Coast seems to be lousy with Canon fanciers so many of them are available locally. If you want it now this is the right box for you. Also many lenses means cheaper prices. I just saw a Canon EF 28-200 for $39! That lens should run around $200 so if you just wanted to buy it and resell it it would be worth the effort.

But back to the reasons. Canon makes the best walking around lens in the market. It's a 55-250 zoom and I just saw one of these on Craig's List for $144. Now that's not as good as the $39 buck lens but it is pretty juicy. If you get a 55-250 you may not need another lens for years. It's a workhorse and Canon quality will keep it working even when you don't.

The preview screen is bright, full of info and right where you need it. Now Nikon and Pentax have info screens and they are good as you would expect but they aren't as bright and easy to read as the Canon. I can read the whole screen without my glasses and when you are shooting not having to push the cheaters off your nose to check the camera settings is a plus. Especially when you get that once in a lifetime shot of a gray whale breaching one hundred yards off the rocks at Shore Acres! 

The battery, remember a sore spot with me, lasts a looooooooooooooong time. I've had it in the camera for a few months and it is still holding enough of a charge I haven't felt the need to recharge it. Now the truth be told the modern Lion batteries don't develop a memory like the old NiCads. You can top them off anytime so don't be ascared. It won't hurt but try every now and then to run it flat. It just keeps the battery in better shape.

Speaking of batteries, you might think about getting another one just in case. That way you can have one in the charger ready to cook up when Brad Pitt comes to town. Or maybe the next time you decide to get up at Dawn Thirty to go see the Polar Bear swimmers. They are bat-shit nuts you know but you can get some interesting pics.

Canon makes two series of lenses, the EF and the EFs. The EF fits the full frame cameras and the EFs fits the APS-C like the Xsi. The nifty, neat and cool thing about an EF lens is that it has a crop factor of 1.6. Yeah, I know you don't know what that means but I am going to tell you and then you will know what it means.

When a lens has a crop factor, it means you get less image to the sensor or effectively a longer lens. So a 28mm wide angle becomes a 45mm normal lens. This isn't so dramatic on the wide angle end of the spectrum but when you get out to the long end of the story a 300mm becomes a 480mm super telephoto and that kids is a huge deal. Canon makes some wonderful long lenses but they charge an arm and a leg and a nose and several other body parts for them. Art Wolf's favorite, (If you don't know who Art Wolf is you need to watch more PBS or go to Art's website and take a look at some of his pictures.), is a 200mm-400mm zoom with a built in 1.4 extender which Canon sells for, take a deep breath, $10990.00 and that's what my first dental implant cost so that is a huge chunk of change but with the crop factor a 18mm-270mm Tamron zoom becomes a 29mm-432mm zoom and it costs $133.00. Now that is a whopping difference.

So, if you like Canon and want to spend the cash you can lay your hands on some pretty lofty equipment for a bunch less than Canon wants for their Brand-name stuff.

Now my follow-up blog post will talk about the handling of each of these guys but I'll fess up right now and say that I like the feel of the Canon more than either the Nikon or the Pentax. It just fits my hand and everything is in the right place.

And while I am making admissions there's Sony and Olympus but their stuff can be hard to find here at the edge of the world so I think you are better off staying with the three guys I have mentioned.

And now that the hollering day is over and the sales are starting you can start thinking about what you would like. Having a top-notch camera is much better than not having one so any of the three I've talked about will do fine. Just try handling them and see if you like the feel and then let loose of some of that cash you made out with for Christmas unless you went to the Mill on Christmas Day like the Ole Trawler and the Long Sufferin' and pushed the cash into the slot machines for three or four hours and came away with nothing but the shirt on your back cause if you had lost that there'd be mucho coverage by the KVAL folks cause a nekkid woman is always a photo-op while a nekkid man is a felony so either way there'd be news coverage and since there wasn't I can bet you kept some of that loot so you have no excuse not to spend it on a good camera.