digital or film?

[k._rivkin]

To reply to a hijacked thread.

"Very poor" and "surprisingly good" are very subjective terms. "Surprisingly good" is actaully smells danger cause it reads "For such money it can actually photograph something". The lens has natural colors, ok distortion and for 25mm and up is quite sharp at f10.

 

Some people will describe this as "good" (Bob Atkins). Others like disgruntled photozoners and me would describe it as "buy L glass !".

 

Concerning "better then 50mm prime" it's a little bit laughable.

[pphaneuf]

Regarding price of digital, I'm not really a high volume shooter, but I spent easily enough on film and development in the three years I have done serious photography to buy a 10D plus a bunch of CompactFlash. If you buy a 10D (or a 300D) now and use it at all (I go out and take pictures maybe a couple of times a month, doing about 4 rolls per month. In canadian money, it cost me about $20 to buy a roll of NPZ (my main film, since I don't shoot much I tend to use good film) and have it developed, for about $2800 (a 10D goes for $2000, and a 300D for $1500). Even if they come out with better cameras, I figure a 10D that takes good pictures today (arguably better than some of the smaller MFs, like 645) will still be doing the same in three years.

 

At the moment, for traveling, storing the pictures and batteries tend to be the biggest annoyances. Having one of these portable hard drives with a CompactFlash reader would help one, and having a spare battery should fix the other (the newest cameras get surprisingly run times on a single charge). Since you will be in well-developed countries, I supposed charging during the night should not pose a problem.

[jim_zwig]

Take a D70 (18-35, 50mm and 80-200/f2.8) and a FM2. If you get into some point with no electric, you can still FM2. Film is available everywhere and FM2 is very light.