[KimDaBa] Suggestion for a good camera

[Robert L Krawitz]

   From: "Jesper K. Pedersen" <blackie at blackie.dk>
   Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 08:01:01 +0100

   Sorry for this offtopic mail, but you are all the experts I know on
   this issue, and it does relate to KimDaBa very much ;-)

   My old camera is now all the way back from 2001, it still works
   flawlessly, but I also feel that it needs an update to keep up with
   you guys ;-)

   Also the camera is lacking esp. raw files, which seems to be more
   and more what people is going for. Without raw support in my camera
   chances that I'll get inclined for adding raw support to KimDaBa
   isn't too high.

   God knows that I'm no hardware guy at all, so thats why I ask you
   for help, what should I get?  The camera must be lightweight, small
   and robust. I want to be able to have it in a pocket at a cocktail
   party, and it shouldn't break the first time I drop it - I think
   I've dropped my current camera at least 5 times ;-o

In general, only the higher end cameras (SLR's and
professionally-oriented non-SLR) offer RAW.  So for example in the
Canon line, only the SLR's and the PowerShot Pro and G series cameras
support RAW.  The S and A series cameras don't.  Canon point & shoots
aren't all that small, except for the Elph and the Axxx (currently
A400) models.  The A75, which I got my wife, isn't really a shirt
pocket camera.  I don't think I'd really want to drop any camera.

RAW has its uses, but snapshots at cocktail parties aren't one of
them.  They're slower for the camera to process, because processing
time is dominated by the time required to store the image and they're
much bigger than JPEG files.  If you don't have problems with contrast
or otherwise need a lot of control, they don't offer all that much
benefit.  I use RAW when shooting nature and landscapes, but not when
shooting people.  I might use RAW to photograph a wedding, because the
contrast is very high and might exceed the 8-bit dynamic range
available in JPEG, but otherwise I don't indoors.

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <rlk at alum.mit.edu>

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
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