Camera Blog

The winter holidays are upon us, and many photographers are out there right now weighing their options on which new camera to buy.  I have put together the following buyers guide to aid people with their decision:

Beginner/Point & Shoot

Intended uses include parties, bars, afternoons photographing your dog/kids/some ducks/etc. in the park.  You’re an attentive consumer so you know what to look for in a piece of electronics: big numbers.  The more mexapixels the better, the bigger “x” on the zoom the better, and if you can save 3 grams in weight it’s worth the extra $5.79 over that other model.

Camera-blog.net’s recommendation: Buy something that looks cool.  Consult GQ, Wired, or Men’s Journal and find the neatest-looking camera you can, or choose from the advertisement that features the hippest 30-somethings out having a good time.  Everything from a major brand under $200 is about the same anyways.

Advanced/dSLR

Intended uses include: taking 30 pictures of your cat at varying f-stops, long exposures of rush-hour traffic from a highway overpass, and wide-angle shots of cathedral interiors from your European vacation.  Be sure to pick up a “How-to” book on photography then go to every photography forum on the internet and clog it up with inane questions, lens “tests”, slightly creepy pictures you took at a local high-school girl’s volleyball tournament, comments on how good your “copy” of your kit lens is, and how much you love the “cinema look” that you get from its video mode which is in reality just crushed black levels and f/1.8 on your borrowed 85mm.

Camera-blog.net’s recommendation: Whichever dSLR under $1100 that feels the best in your hands.  Video features that you probably won’t take advantage of are an important part of your buying decision, as are flash systems that you probably won’t ever fully figure out, built-in “Picture Styles” that will forever ruin your camera-created .jpgs, and the number of $2,000 lenses that you’ll be buying (eventually!) even though you’re shopping around for the easiest $50 rebate right now.

Expert

Intended uses include: “Fine art photography” that you can show off to your pretentious friends at your monthly photo-club get-together, lens resolution charts, close-ups of a tiger’s iris at the zoo. It’s important that you look like you know what you’re doing so lots of buttons, in-camera menus that go 4 levels deep (tethered laptops are an acceptable substitution), giant petal-shaped lens hoods, and CNC’d “L-brackets” are important.  Bigger is better here!

Camera-blog.net’s recommendation: Something with a German or European name that you can be sure others will mispronounce.  Leica, Seitz, Hasselblad, etc.  Suffixes and prefixes such as -pan, hypo-, helio-, -lux, -gon, and -nar are all important to have on your lenses and accessories.  A writeup on Luminous-Landscape.com is essential to confirm your good taste in gear.  Make sure that you practice your concerned chimping face in front of the mirror before you go out on a shoot, and don’t forget to budget for an $1,800 tripod.

This is a review of the much-anticipated Sigma DP2 compact camera that was released in May, 2009.

I hope to make it clear in both broad strokes and in great detail why this camera is: revolutionary, a hopeful sign of things to come, a success, and a big steaming pile of compromises.

Please read on for the full review.

As of May 15th it looks as though the Sigma DP-2 is out of stock at every major internet retailer. Phone calls to B&H, Adorama, Amazon, J&R, and others all resulted in the same answer: the DP-2 is out of stock, and there is no ETA for new inventory. Whether the camera is insanely popular or the retailers didn’t get very much stock in the first place remains to be seen, but with images like these starting to pop up around the ‘net it’s sure making a good first impression.

Here’s a quick rundown of the camera’s page on each site for easy reference:

Amazon.com

B&H Photo

Adorama

J&R

17th Street Photo

I will update this post as soon as any of the above retailers get it in stock.

UPDATE: Our friends in the U.K. can pick up a DP-2 at ABC-Digital-Cameras.co.uk for £599.99.  Still no word on North American availability, however.

UPDATE #2 (May 20th): 17th Street Photo has the DP-2 available right now for $699.  This is still a $50 premium over every other store that is will be carrying it, but right now they’re the only place that has it in stock.

It doesn’t even need a description, does it?

Based on aesthetics alone this camera has already won the hearts of many photographers.  It’s small, it embraces the Micro 4/3rds sensor format and it just looks great in that old-school Leica/rangefinder-esque sort of way.

It’ll be coming in at a touch over $1,000 and there haven’t been any detailed specs released to the public as of yet.  At this point though I don’t even care what it does or how it does it because there’s no denying that it’ll look great doing it.

Why is this camera so exciting, when we already have hundreds of digital compacts to choose from?  There are 2 reasons: First and foremost, the sensor has over 10 times the surface area as that of a traditional point & shoot, which should yield far better low-light performance and noise characteristics.  And second, we have yet to see an affordable (sorry Leica) compact with interchangeable lenses.

Somewhere, a team of product managers and engineers is listening to our wishes…

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