Ideal Equipment

[Groucho]

As predicted, no one has the guts to switch brand loyalties.

If Nikon had put IS in the D80, I might have considered, purely for a "dream list", but until they do... and every with all the money, I'd rather have IS in the body, thank you very much. It'll help even with the 50mm stuff - and do any of them have any IS-in-the-lens primes?

I'm typing this from lovely Saratoga Springs, NY, while my wife's at a conference, and I'm in the hotel room using dial-up (UGH!) with a sleeping 19-month-old on my lap. I took a bunch of photos this morning at the Children's Museum here with my almost-20-year-old Sigma 28mm 2.8... a good prime and RAW format are a formidable combination! Now I just need a split-focus focusing screen to help with the manual focus... the camera beeps when it thinks I'm in focus but at 2.8 chasing a kid, it's difficult to keep it in focus. I think I'll have to get an autofocus version of the 50mm 1.4 when I pick one of those up.

 

[0bli0]

well i'll probably take my holga 120GN next time....

 

[Master Mason]

As predicted, no one has the guts to switch brand loyalties.

I think that is because most of us picked our cameras because of something we liked about the brand. There really is very little difference in similar models between the brands, so it usually comes down to something small that made one chose one brand over the other.

maybe it was feel, the particular lenses that were availible, past experience etc. All of the cameras being discussed are fantastic, it comes down to the ford or chevy decision, or in your case the crystler

 

[boBQuincy]

Camera brand loyalty...

I had stayed with Minolta since the early '70's, from the SRT-101 through the autofocus models into 2001. After waiting too long for Minolta's dSLR to turn from rumor to reality I finally made the switch to Canon in late 2001, with a D30.

I didn't go with Nikon because their dSLR at the time was far too expensive. Now, many lenses later, it is very difficult to switch again without a huge investment. The Canons have been good and my D30 is still a fine performer five years later, so there's no real reason to switch brands. Except for maybe Nikon's 18-200...

As for General Motors, of which I have been a steady customer for over 30 years, I am *very* likely to buy some other brand next time!

 

[handicap18]

do any of them have any IS-in-the-lens primes?

Nikon has 3 primes with VR
105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Macro ($829)
200mm f/2G ED-IF AF-S VR ($3,999)
300mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR ($3,999)

Since most primes can be gotten at f/1.8 and lower I don't know that VR/IS is going to be something that a lot of people would want. A 50mm 1.8 is about $100. A 50mm 1.8 with VR would probably add at least $300. Is VR/IS worth that much for short primes?

 

[Groucho]

I'm just teasing about the whole brand loyalty thing. Even if the cameras weren't all so comparable, it's human nature to stick to what you know and like - and I think people are a lot happier with their cameras than their cars. (In the interest of not boring everyone to death, I won't relate a car story here!)

That is one advantage for C/N to keeping IS in the lens... the bigger of an investment you have in the lenses, the more "trapped" (for better or for worse) the users are in the system. Once someone has a few lenses, you have to REALLY get them peeved to ebay everything and start all over - even if they could save money with another system.

 

[Disneyfreak92]

OMG! I can't believe I forgot about my lensbaby 2.0 and my Gary Fong diffuser! Add those to my list.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I just don't get the point of a lensbaby. What the heck is it for? If it is just to allow you to selectively focus on part of the scene, why not just do that with software later?

 

[0bli0]

since the lensbaby bends, the focal plane of the lens is no longer parallel to the sensor/film. by bending it and moving the end around, you can move the 'sweet spot' around in relation to the centre of the sensor as well. therefore the falloff of sharpness is not constant like it is with a traditional lens. lastly, the optics are not as clear and sharp as a normal lens. you can sorta simulate the effect with vaqrying amounts of radial blur (and maybe a grunge brush) - but you can sorta simulate IR photography as well - and you can use post processing to fix people's skin and so on, and so on...
personally, i find taking photos for the photo's sake very refreshing and also challenging. here are a few examples: