The Right to White (Balance)

I’ve tried to ignore this certain person who has an awful lot to say about cameras. I don’t want to mention names, but he claims to be a pro photographer, and he’s just very opinionated about everything, and when I do a search about cameras or equipment I’m looking into, right on top is his website. He contradicts himself vehemently, which bugs me. One review he says a camera sucks because it only has 6 megapixels. The next page he says megapixels don’t matter, anyone that tells you they do is a liar, and 3 megapixels are great.

But he also must think people are really stupid, which irks me even more. Because of his devout love & constant recommendation for everyone to buy the Nikon D40 DSLR.

I’ve never tried one in person, and couldn’t say I’d refuse a free camera if someone wanted to give it to me, but I’d probably still complain about it just the same. When it appeared clear that I need to either repair my existing DSLR or buy a new one, I started my research (and hence ran into this website constantly). I looked for the cheapest camera that would fulfill my most basic desires. And I looked at the D40.

It has two hitches I just don’t like. It only has 3 points to use autofocus. I like at least 5. Newer cameras even have 11 and up. 3 equals left, middle, right. It’s all nice to think that what every photographer wants to focus on is in one of these three places, but often it’s not. If you’re hand-holding it like a point & shoot, it’s not such a big deal. Focus on what you want, press half-way down, then reframe your picture and take it. If you’re taking a serious photo w/a tripod, however, this would drive me nuts. Bring what you want in focus to one of those three markers. Click half-way down. Change camera to manual focus so you don’t lose the setting because exposure lock only lasts a couple of seconds. Move the camera to frame what you want. Lock it down securely. Take the picture. Put it back on auto-focus for the next one. Bang head against hard object as needed.

But what really gets under my skin is that this guy says the N40 is the best camera ever made when it doesn’t have a white balance. My little $200 point & shoot has a white balance. It has several settings. Ok, most people snapping shots of family & vacations may not know or care, and that’s fine for them. but some of us would like to think we’re a little smarter than the camera. We don’t expose all our shots at 18% gray because “the camera says so.” We take into account where 18% is, but then we do what we want for extreme light or dark shots. The same goes for white balance. The camera can guess, but I’d rather have options. I’d rather have some control & input. Do you really want to go into PhotoShop to adjust every shot’s white balance because the camera didn’t guess correctly? Seriously? Sure, technology and cameras are nifty, but they don’t have all the right answers. Sometimes you may want to use the white balance for artistic effect. Why not have that freedom? It’s one thing if Nikon makes a decent SLR without white balance. But let’s not exalt it on a throne for that. Come on.

Camera Repair

The time has come. I've had some fun w/my digital point & shoot, but it is so incredibly inferior to an SLR I amost can't stand it any more. It focuses SO slowly. Forget it if your subject moves. And the crispness & sharpness of my ancient "first generation" DSLR is so much better it drives me nuts. If it worked, that is.

I took a trip somewhat recently, and as usually, took all my camera gear, "just in case." I wanted to take some shots that I knew would turn out better with my old D100. It took three successful shots before I was ready to throw it in the water out of frustration. It keeps going into program (or stupid happy) mode when you don't have it set on that. Anyway, three shots. When I got home (no laptop) those three shots blew my mind, they were so wonderful. It reminded me what I've been missing.

So we searched the web to trouble-shoot the problem. A few suggestions, but didn't work on mine. And so the question arises, is it worth trying to repair it?

Again, thankful for the internet, as there are no Nikon authorized dealer in my state, or even within several hours drive. Even the list Nikon has includes some that appear to be out of business. It comes down to where would I like to ship it? Luckily people still give free estimates. Not knowing how complex digital cameras might be, heck, that's good to know. I figure worst case expensive shipping scenario, I'm out $50 or so.

But I have to contemplate what price will be worth it. Obviously there are bigger, better, faster SLRs out there now. They may be a little cheaper than they used to be, but we're still talking several hundred dollars. What if it's $300 to repair the glitch. Will something else break soon after? Will the same thing go wrong again due to the inherent design (or flaw) of the camera? How cheap can I find a decent SLR as replacement if needed? What if I found one for $600? Would it seem logical to just buy a new one?

I read something once in an article about how to choose a digital camera I will never forget. Digital cameras break. They will always be more prone to breaking because they are digital. No digital camera will ever last like a film camera. Whatever you buy, it WILL break.

I know this is true, and it completely makes sense. But really think about it when you're considering dropping a few hundred on a new camera. Mine did take a lot of pictures, but I could swear it didn't make it two years before it had this "I want to be in program mode" issue. Two years. Possibly 18 months.

As you can guuess, I'm a bit out of the current loop for buying digital cameras. I've done my research as to what I'd like, vs. what I can't live without, etc. The one thing I don't know, is whether anyone is willing to sell extended warranties on them anymore. Probably not. But I'd be really interested if they did. I wouldn't want to try to buy a used one, because it'd be that much closer to falling apart. What's the point?

And I have to point out my last camera repair. On my film SLR, the Nikon F100. It was a fairly simply shutter leak, and they kidnapped my camera for almost six months. Maybe it was my mistake by sending it back to Nikon. But I couldn't take pictures with light leaking in, and I had no idea they would take so long. 5+ months. Good grief. I'm browsing smaller authorized repair shops. But still, it's close to Christmas. They'll probably be swamped. Ideally, I'd like to have it back by my next vacation in March. Is that too much to ask? We'll see.

Whether they can repair it, or I submit to buying a new one, it's still going to come down to how much to spend on something I know is going to break anyway. How depressing is that?

Animals & Plants

Animals and plants can be surprisingly difficult to coordinate. I’m not a big green-thumb, but I do like live plants (plastic just don't do it for me). Having had difficult plant situations in the past, my inclination was to look for plants claimed to be easy to grow, or hard to kill. I was also intrigued by plants claimed to be effective at filtering or cleaning air. Or even just browse a local store and see what plants look nice and seem to have light needs I can accommodate. Can’t do that though. Not without first searching several databases to see if the plants are toxic to animals. You can try to plant or keep them out of the way of your animal, but with my determined cats, I can't be too sure. Why ask for trouble? So I end up copy/pasting articles about good plants into a word document just so I can track the recommendations and then check them against the toxic lists. Unfortunately in my quest, the large majority of them are toxic. And don't even think about browsing the plant stores unless you have a mobile device to look up the toxicity. It’s just ironic. About a year ago I tried to find those easy to grow plants for work because my co-workers shut all the window blinds and my plants died. Not even thinking about toxicity, I had a difficult time finding the commonly recommended plants to buy. Good grief. Now we have a new place with lots of sun, I thought it would be nice to have plants at home, and actually found a couple of those hearty plants. But alas, they're toxic to animals. Just had no idea this could be so complicated.