That 2nd dial on the a100 is what makes the interface so annoying. On the XTi all the buttons and dials you need to adjust stuff while shooting are on the right side of the camera, leaving your left hand free to keep the camera ready to shoot.

For example, to change the ISO on my XTi I hit up, and then up or down to the ISO setting I want, and then half press the shutter. All that is done with my thumb and index finger on my right hand. Barely changing my grip, I don't even need to lower the camera. On the a100 I have to turn the left dial to ISO (good luck doing that without looking) with my left hand, press the little button on the top of the dial (again, left hand), then with my right hand use the up/down buttons to choose the ISO, and then half press the shutter.

The a100 does feel better in your hand, but once you realize you should be supporting the weight of the camera with your left hand its pretty much a non issue.

Quote from STROBE :

Ergonomics are of course a matter of taste. I tried the 400D and couldn't stand it. Far too small, like it was designed for girls' hands - felt like I was about to drop it, even with the crappy kit lens attached.

I just don't get this. I have large hands (no comments, please ) and I find the 400D fits in my hands just fine. If I had to be really picky about it, I would prefer it to be slightly larger, but there's nothing wrong with it as it is. Oh, and the kit lens isn't that bad. It's obviously cheap, but if you can't take good photos with it then that's not the lens' fault.

Quote :

And the interface was really, really annoying. Even changing the simplest thing required so many button presses. With the A100 you just turn the shoulder dials - turn, choose, enter, done. But again, it's all a matter of preference. However I do believe that if there's one thing Minolta had right, it's ergonomics.

I agree with Stregone entirely on this one. Almost every adjustment I want to make can be done with the thumb and forefinger of my right hand while my left hand simply supports the weight of the camera and lens.

After much research, conversations with people online and off, more research, more conversations, and even more research, I've decided to go with the Olympus E-510. I considered a bunch of cameras, including some that were suggested in this thread that I hadn't considered before, like the Pentax K100D, but ultimately the E-510 was the best option for me in terms of price/performance/features.

thanks for everyone's advice. i'll comment more when i get my camera, hopefully by the end of this week.

I've found the Sony H2 to perform very well in most situations, particularly for what is now a 2 year-old model. The auto-mode works quite well most of the time, but its true strength, as with a lot of these "hybrid" cameras, is the full-manual mode that allows you a great deal of freedom in fooling around and learning the various settings. This is ideal for someone like me that is interested in photography but has too many other interests to justify dropping $1,000 on a camera (just yet...).

(Auto-settings, edited for size):

One
Two
Three

(Photoshop):

Run for the hills!

The Fujifilm camera's are good, I used one to take this picture:



Not bad for something that costs ~£50 now.


The only thing I couldn't really do with it (it was an old Fuji S304) is pictures like this, which i needed a dslr:



Also, see the pictures on www.jackmcintyre.co.uk

I use a Canon 350D, anything with a focal length over 55 on the site is using a Sigma 70-300mm APO DG.

hi jack, i hope i'm not being rude or anything, you dont have to take this seriously but i see you do special framing and everything however you have a hotmail adress...which doesn't really look professional, oh well, i can't believe i just said that but still

Quote from harjun :

hi jack, i hope i'm not being rude or anything, you dont have to take this seriously but i see you do special framing and everything however you have a hotmail adress...which doesn't really look professional, oh well, i can't believe i just said that but still

I could have an @jackmcintyre.co.uk, but I tend to get confused with several email address'. Hence why i've had this one since i first used a computer.

Thanks for the comment, though.

Quote from mcintyrej :

I could have an @jackmcintyre.co.uk, but I tend to get confused with several email address'. Hence why i've had this one since i first used a computer.

Thanks for the comment, though.

cool, by the way really nice pictures you got on your site , by the way, would they be clearer on a HD screen?, and also, are you a professional photogropher (like as your job)

Quote from StewartFisher :

I just don't get this. I have large hands (no comments, please ) and I find the 400D fits in my hands just fine. If I had to be really picky about it, I would prefer it to be slightly larger, but there's nothing wrong with it as it is. Oh, and the kit lens isn't that bad. It's obviously cheap, but if you can't take good photos with it then that's not the lens' fault.

That's the thing, I don't have huge hands but just found the 400D's grip too small. Maybe it wasn't purely the size of the camera at fault, maybe it was the grip itself was just too thin and insubstantial. Or maybe it was the shape of the grip itself (all Alphas/Minoltas have a lovely gouge in the grip just right for wrapping your fingers around). I can grip my A100 all day, but I knew from the moment I held the 400D that it would get uncomfortable. It's just a matter of taste.

Of course, the D40 is even worse for me. I tried my sister's and hated it. Rediculously small, and as soon as I half pressed the shutter, the flash shot up. Nor were there any buttons or direct access to anything on it, everything had to be done through menus. But then again, I tend to think the Minolta 7D had around the right amount of direct controls (although I've never owned or handled one), and some people find it complete overkill.

As regards kit lenses, yes it's all down to the photographer as to what creates a good image. I quite like my 18-70 though, and would never choose Canon's kit lens over it.

Quote from Stregone :

For example, to change the ISO on my XTi I hit up, and then up or down to the ISO setting I want, and then half press the shutter. All that is done with my thumb and index finger on my right hand. Barely changing my grip, I don't even need to lower the camera.

Indeed, but how many steps do you need to do to change the flash type? Or focus mode? Or colour profiles, sharpness, etc? Thing is, you can change all your shooting options with that dial using the same process - turn, select, enter, done. I find it totally intuitive, so I'm a little surprised people can find it such an issue.

Quote from Stregone :

On the a100 I have to turn the left dial to ISO (good luck doing that without looking)

Pretty easy when you know what sequence the controls on the dial come in. Besides, one of the shortfalls of the A100 is a lack of ISO display in the viewfinder, so you have to move and look at the LCD when changing ISO anyway. Would be nice to see that fixed in future Alphas, if it's not already. Not that I need to change ISO that much, admittedly, given that I don't constantly walk in and out of dimly lit rooms. And besides, if the shutter speed begins to drag a bit then I don't need to increase ISO, the image stabilisation takes care of it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the A100 is a perfect camera - there's no such thing. But to make statements claiming that any current entry level DSLR is "a clunky piece of junk" is at best ignorant, and at worst, inflammatory. It's something that can be seen everywhere in reference to cameras from Pentax, Olympus, Minolta/Sony etc - people saying "this camera does things differently from my Canikon, it's crap" when what they mean is simply "this camera does things differently". It's a bit like me saying "the 400D is a primitive piece of sh*t" because it doesn't have image stabilisation, DRO, wireless flash, etc. It's true that it doesn't have those things, but that doesn't make it a primitive piece of sh*t, because it excels in other areas instead - notably AF speed/accuracy and a full system of accessories compared to the A100. It depends on what you want from a camera and how you like to use it.

After all we could sit here all day and pass off sweeping generalisations as fact, when what actually matters is using whatever equipment you choose or can afford in order to take the best images you can.

Quote from harjun :

cool, by the way really nice pictures you got on your site , by the way, would they be clearer on a HD screen?, and also, are you a professional photogropher (like as your job)

I like to think of it as my job, i'm 15 but I sell my pictures. Doesn't make me much, but its nice to be earning some money. I don't normally work for money, it just seems to accumulate in my tin.

Quote from harjun :

by the way, would they be clearer on a HD screen?

Yes - I think you should buy a 52" Bravia to get a better view of them.

Quote from mcintyrej :

The Fujifilm camera's are good, I used one to take this picture...

I agree. Both my compact P&S digital and the slr style P&S digital camera are fujifilm cameras.

i took these with my Fujifilm S5000, the slr style P&S (resized for forum)

Quote from STROBE :

Indeed, but how many steps do you need to do to change the flash type? Or focus mode? Or colour profiles, sharpness, etc? Thing is, you can change all your shooting options with that dial using the same process - turn, select, enter, done. I find it totally intuitive, so I'm a little surprised people can find it such an issue.

All of those work the same way, just pushing a different button(metering hit left, WB hit down, AF type hit right, etc.). Except the flash. The flash controls are in a menu. The menu remembers what option you were on when you go back to it though. And since the AF and IS are in the lens those options are right there next to your left hand which is already on the lens.

Maybe I was a little out of line calling it a piece of junk. But the interface is definitely clunky, the AF is noisy, and personally I hate the sound of the shutter (ku-klunk). And it costs about 100 bucks (USD) more than the XTi.

Quote from harjun :

cool, by the way really nice pictures you got on your site , by the way, would they be clearer on a HD screen?, and also, are you a professional photogropher (like as your job)

An HD screen is just a screen with 720 or 1080 vertical pixels. All computer screens built in the last decade have in effect supported HD. Simply using a larger resolution isn't going to improve the clarity of an image because it's still a set size, you aren't going to suddenly change that fact because you've bought an expensive screen.

Quote from STROBE :

Of course, the D40 is even worse for me. I tried my sister's and hated it. Rediculously small, and as soon as I half pressed the shutter, the flash shot up.

Well, my 400D does this in full-auto mode if it decides it needs flash. I agree it's irritating, but that's the punishment you should expect for using full-auto

Quote :

As regards kit lenses, yes it's all down to the photographer as to what creates a good image. I quite like my 18-70 though, and would never choose Canon's kit lens over it.

I should probably confess at this point that my kit lens was very quickly rejected in favour of the 17-85mm. Looking back through photos taken with the kit lens, it was clearly the idiot behind the viewfinder who was limiting the quality of my shots, not the lens

mcintyrej, you've got some awesome shots there!

Quote from harjun :

I've recently taken up an interest in photography,

lol?

I recently acquired a 400D too and since there seem to be a lot of photographers here, I'd like to ask some other questions...

Which program do you use for importing, retouching, cropping your pictures? I tried some like Acdsee, Lightroom etc but none of them came close in ease-of-use as a program that a friend showed me on a Mac (and I'm never too keen on giving plus points to a Mac :razz.

What particularly interests me is also batch cropping and batch framing pictures. A quick search on Google didn't give me any interesting options...Do you know any programs with these functions?

I personally use photoshop. I'm guessing the program on the mac you are refering to is iPhoto. I've never used Lightroom, but it is supposed to be designed specifically for such tasks.

What about the software that came with the camera? It should be able to handle these tasks.

I use Lightroom. I especially like the way it doesn't touch the original files. I dunno about the framing and stuff, my friend uses Photoshop for that, but he already uses that for his work. Kinda overkill just for that. Probably some free program that can handle that. I just checked Irfanview and it doesn't look like it can.

Quote from Paranoid Android :

I recently acquired a 400D too and since there seem to be a lot of photographers here, I'd like to ask some other questions...

Which program do you use for importing, retouching, cropping your pictures? I tried some like Acdsee, Lightroom etc but none of them came close in ease-of-use as a program that a friend showed me on a Mac (and I'm never too keen on giving plus points to a Mac :razz.

What particularly interests me is also batch cropping and batch framing pictures. A quick search on Google didn't give me any interesting options...Do you know any programs with these functions?

Best program for retouching is PS AFAIK.
But if you need something free&good, I strongly advice to you use "FastStone Image Viewer"
http://www.faststone.org
FastStone is very good for batch cropping, batch renaming, water dropping etc...
I may say that best free program ever I saw.
You may also find light editing tools inside the prg.

For the effects, I use several programs, but mostly PhotoFiltre.
http://www.photofiltre-studio.com/news-en.htm
It has some plug-ins you can add.

GIMP2 is far good.
http://developer.gimp.org/

Pixia is another user friendly&very good editing prg.
http://park18.wakwak.com/~pixia/

And also Deep Paint
http://www.photo-freeware.net/deep-paint.php

For the importing, I do not use anything special for this task,
I just set my camera "as hard drive", when plug in to usb,
computer recognizes it and I can copy/paste anything just like an external drive.

Quote from Paranoid Android :

Which program do you use for importing, retouching, cropping your pictures? I tried some like Acdsee, Lightroom etc but none of them came close in ease-of-use as a program that a friend showed me on a Mac (and I'm never too keen on giving plus points to a Mac :razz.

I've got a memory card reader in my PC so I don't use any special program to import pictures. I avoid installing the software that comes with things like cameras and phones because I don't like clutter on my PC.

For all my photo editing I use the GIMP (www.gimp.org). It doesn't quite have the power of Photoshop but it's free

Quote :

What particularly interests me is also batch cropping and batch framing pictures. A quick search on Google didn't give me any interesting options...Do you know any programs with these functions?

Batch cropping sounds like an odd thing to do...surely you'd prefer to crop your photos individually so that you control the framing. Do you mean re-sizing?

For RAW editing I use SilkyPix, for JPEG I use Lightroom or Photoshop.

I shoot all raw and I use Lightroom to edit now unless I need to do indepth stuff or layers.
It is a great program for doing batch editing!!!

Adobe Raw is perfect for me, since I (nearly) exclusively take pictures in RAW format (depending on how much I know I'm going to take in a day).

I tried others like Lightroom and something else I can't remember, but neither of them I could get used to since I got immediately used to Adobe Bridge with Raw, it's just perfect and lets me seamlessly go into Photoshop CS3 and make more edits from there before I save them as jpegs.

Lightroom has much to offer, but the layout is so weird for me, I'm to used to using folders with files etc., not having a "database" of files in a jumble.

Others may disagree, but I'm just going to say that I only did give Lightroom about a week, after the fact I had fallen in love with Bridge's 'Stock Photos', so it wasn't a fair comparison, however the workflow was to unique and out of order from what I was used to.

@STROBE about the D40 and flash etc. All cameras do that when they're fully automatic lol, that's what you get for going into Auto, that's why I hardly use it, I prefer "P" (Program) mode in which all of the internals and software is done automatic, but the externals are done manually such as flash etc. It also gives you the ability to change ISO and others that auto leaves alone for those that are unknowing.

You can use folders with Lightroom, even manage folders and the pictures in them. Just use the Folders tab in the Library module. Its on the left under Find and above Collections.