Simple complexity!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Tons of features, you can grow with it, great image quality

Cons: sometimes a bit TOO complex!

The Bottom Line: 
A good camera for the money. You won’t get fed up with it as you can really grow with it.

Author's Review
This is a going to be a short review of an excellent camera. I’ve worked with more than few digital cameras in my time, from small megapixels units to some pretty serious stuff. This is one of the most serious cameras that I've worked with. It is considered an "amateur" camera but is more than capable of some very high quality and professional images.

Having worked with film and SLRs for many years, I finally took the plunge and got this camera in December 2005. I am more than pleased with it. What pleases me the best is that I finally get to see what I am taking a picture of. I was getting too much parallex from other cameras, especially when doing close-up work. This no longer occurs and for that I am grateful. Also, with the SLR, I can purchase additional lenses so that I can do macro photography, have a lens with higher telephoto or wide angle capabilities.

The instruction manuals is quite lengthy and goes into many details. It is user friendly and written in a fashion that a novice can understand.

Below is a list of the great features about this camera.

1. You can use it as a point and shoot camera if you want by setting it on auto focus and auto flash. Great! When I’m traveling with other people, I don’t have time to set up a shot as if I were alone. By pointing and shooting, I can keep up with my comrades yet get very good photos.

2. Battery power is excellent. Camera comes with a recharger. I’ve taken about 500 images so far with it and it is still going strong. You can purchase an extra rechargeable battery to keep on hand as it takes more than a few minutes to recharge the battery. The charge on the cameras is starting to diminish after two months of regular use (at least once a week of taking up to 45 shots).

3. Image quality is great. I’ve made dozens of prints, I shoot in the high resolution mode and am pleased. They are at 300 dpi and have gotten excellent 8 x 10” prints.

4. Color rendition: excellent. You don’t have to touch up the color, rendition is excellent. However, when I've taken indoor pictures where flash was not allowed and it came out too amber, it retouched to what it should look like.

5. Time to recharge for next flash/shot: very fast. It works at the speed of a regular SLR.

6. Lens: I have 28-80 mm range with the zoom. I do wish I had longer range with it when photographing alligators from 50 feet away but when I zoom in with Photoshop I do have a good crisp image that is NOT grainy.

7. WYSIWYG: the what you see is what you get through the lens is great. I don’t like using an LCD to photograph as it is frustrating on a sunny day and it also sucks down too much battery power. Also, the manual zoom feature also saves precious battery power.

8. LCD is a good size. It is also easy to review photos and to delete those that you don’t want. Just press the trash can on the back of the camera.

9. Feature overload: good grief, there is so much there that it’ll take me a good year to figure it all out but I’m thrilled.

10. Close ups are good. I sometimes do work for websites and need images of jewelry or watches. The lens I got is not a macro but it works fine. I can zoom in to about 50% size and I can crop in Photoshop to get great results.

11. Uploading the PC is fairly easy. I don’t have a card reader. Just plug the camera into the PC and within a few moments they are on the hard drive. I did have to read the instructions more than twice to get it right the first time.

12. Instruction manual is well detailed, it has an index which is great as it is very lengthy. Print is a bit small but I managed to read it.

Drawbacks are very few, this is all I can think of:
1. It is a bit bulky, not the size of a deck of cards so it won’t fit in your pocket. However, it is about 50% lighter than a regular SLR so it is NOT that heavy.

2. Some may be put off by the complexity but for what I paid (about $600) I cannot complain as I know I can grow into the camera as I build up my comfort zone. However, if set up in the automatic mode, it works terrific.

Megapixel comment:
sure it is great to have really high megapixel but this feature is SO OVERRATED. Unless you are printing 11 x 17" don't worry. I've gotten great pictures from a 1 megapixel camera. Most people do not print over 8 x 10 so don't fret about this. This is a 5.1 mp camera and it is more than fine.

Bottom line:
A good camera for the money. You won’t get fed up with it as you can really grow with it. Some stores even offer classes on how to use it. If so, take them up on it. You won’t regret it.