Thomas Locke Hobbs

My Digital Cameras

I have two digital cameras, pictured above; a Canon Digital Rebel and a Minolta XG. The Rebel is currently about $800 and the Minolta about $180. The Rebel is for pictures I care about [mostly portraits]. I can make enlargements up to 12"x18" that look spectacular. The Minolta is my go-anywhere camera that fits in my pocket.

Using a Digital SLR like the Rebel, which is the cheapest one available, is like driving a Porsche. It's an absolute pleasure to take pictures with and the images themselves are of superb quality--near equal to film but with all the advantages of digital [instant feedback, no processing costs, custom white balance, and changeable ISO settings]. For anyone who's interested in buying a digital camera and is looking at the more expensive, so-called "prosumer" models I'd recommend spending more to get this camera. There's a discontinuous jump in image quality, design and control with a Digital SLR and everything else below it.

I thought I'd use the Minolta more. It's always with me but I rarely take it out. It's nice and sleek but I've found my picture taking to have grown more deliberate [arranged photo sessions] rather than spontaneous. Still, it's good to have and it's a lot better than a shitty phonecam [which will someday be OK, just not yet]. I wish it ran on AA or AAA rechargeable rather than a proprietary one. I like to have all my gadgets running the same type of batteries. It makes the "recharging" lifestyle a little easier to manage.

For this blog, most of the photos are taken with the Rebel, altho I shrink the images so severely that the difference is hardly evident [altho any picture with a narrow depth of field [blurry background] was definitely taken with the Rebel as the Minolta's lens is too small for that effect]. The Paris Pictures were all taken with the Rebel while Portugal was all done with the small Minolta.

Thursday, December 30, 2004