12 Apr 2009

Why you shouldn't buy that R10 000 digital camera

I just bought this great Nikon F65 slr camera, complete with a very nice mid range zoom, tripod and camera bag for only R600 (US$59)!
Almost everybody on the planet is going digital crazy and flogging fantastic cameras like this for next to nothing. It was first released by Nikon in 2001, so it has all the latest slr tech built in, like full matrix metering, fast auto focus, full compatibility with the latest VR lenses and iTTL flash units, etc. Get one and you will have gotten the bargain of the year! It takes great pics and will only be limited by your own ability.

The following were taken with the F65, on cheap Fuji 200 ISO consumer film, developed and badly scanned by my local lab:

I have to get my own scanner, the lab over exposes everything they scan... and very crummy resolution etc. as well. I fixed these a bit with the Gimp.

Ken Rockwell has a good review of the F65 here.
Nikon has a page on it here.
Bought the camera here.

My question once again is: why spend R10 000 on a new digital camera when you can get a great film camera for so much less money? The end result, a photographic print or scanned image, will be exactly the same anyway... unless you scan at any lab in the Centurion Mall.