Today I did something I've been thinking about for a while, I ordered a new camera! My old camera has been great, it's an Olympus D-560, but I've been thinking that it was about time for an upgrade. I began taking quite a few garden pictures when I started up this blog back in October 2007 and would like to make some better quality pictures. I've done some research and I think I've found what I need in a Nikon D40. It's not at the high end of the DSRL (Digital Single Reflex Lens) cameras, it's more of an introductory camera into the DSLR realm. From what I've read about DSLRs, it is better to spend money on the lenses since the camera bases can be upgraded. The lenses will always be usable as long as the base is compatible.
This particular Nikon is only a 6.1 megapixel camera. I opted for the camera with the fewer megapixels in exchange for a more reasonable price. While the 10 mega-pixel camera would be nice to have, many people have noticed that once you get above 5 megapixels or so the differences are indiscernible to the human eye. In fact David Pogue of the New York Times did an experiment where he made three copies of the same picture with a different amount of megapixels used for each photograph then took them to the street. Only one person was able to correctly identify the pictures and the corresponding megapixels. When I made my decision on the camera the megapixels weren't the main factor.
I went to a local store and checked out the exact camera I was considering and studied how it felt, how the lenses worked, and peaked at a few other cameras so I feel pretty comfortable with my camera pick. One cool feature I've always wanted in a camera was the ability to take multiple shots per second. The ability to take rapid picture will make nature photography much simpler. Just imagine the shots of a butterfly fanning wings or the fluttering of a hummingbird. The Nikon D40 can take 2.5 pictures in a second! Now you can expect a whole lot of garden pictures coming your way via this blog! Of course it might take 7-10 days...
.
