chris.townsend

I use the 8080 a lot and love it. A great camera and capable of being used to make some wonderful pictures. If you can find it, grab it; they are hard to come by now.

SIGMA makes a 500 series flash with full digital TTL metering ( P-TTL ) or something like that and a whole slew of manual features too for ~ $200 and a bit lesser of a model for $140. I just picked up one off B&H and am playing with it now. So far, the build quality is good and it is nice enough for my needs. I picked mine up from B&H.

Oly C-8080 is a sweet and capable digicam. I have one and enjoy using it. I looked into the Nikon CP 8400 and it looks like it is a capable camera too. All of the digicams mentioned so far are becoming harder to find as most, I believe, are being phazed out of production in favor of the low end DSLR's companies are now offering.

 

check out www.dpreview.com it'll answer all your questions regarding features, etc, for all the cameras mentioned and then some.

 

Cheers.

The Oly 8080, I have one, has a slow shutter release lag but a VERY LONG FOCUS lag which can be very frustrating. I recently read a review of a pro that uses the 8080 and he mentions prefocusing to reduce the focus lag, etc. The 8080 is a high quality build with an excellent lens and can be used to make excellent images.

 

The sites the others suggest are wonderful for comparing cameras. Cheers and happy shopping!

I had the latest 28/1.8 and HATED it. It was big and I didn't like the color cast at all. The focus was loud and slow too. When I used the custom white balance it was just fine. I returned it and got the Sigma 30mm 1.4 (which has been wonderful) because I didn't want to have to set a custom white balance every single time to get rid of the color cast. I also really wanted that uber large max aperture that the 30mm f/1.4 has for available light shots which has been a lot of fun.

<br/><br/>

I've used the Nikon 28 f/2.8 and it is a wonderful lens. If the 2.8 if fast enough for you then by all means, it is an inexpensive 'normal' on a DSLR and makes a great little lens that is very light and fast focusing as well as very sharp. It can be had, used in good condition, for a very low price too.

<br/><br/>

If the color cast doesn't bother you then the Sigma 28/1.8 is an OK lens. If you can swing it, you will love the Sigma 30mm f/1.4. The 28/1.8 focused fine for me most of the time and was sharp, however, the color cast was a weird brownish or yellowish tint that I just didn't like at all. Some people love the Sigma 28/1.8 so it must just boil down to personal taste for the most part.

<br/><br/>

Cheers and have fun checking out new lenses!

Thought I'd post a quick note regarding the Sigma 28mm/1.8 Macro EX DG just in case anyone else is looking at it. I just picked this lens up to test it out and it is going straight back to the shop. The thing is HUGE and I don't like the color cast at all. Some how this lens makes people look like they have plastic skin too.

<br/><br/>

At any rate, I'll post some of the quick snap shots I took with it compared to my trusty Nikon 50mm for anyone who is interested. I got the 50 based on photo.net user suggestions and am VERY pleased with it.

<br/><br/>

Also, I compared the Sigma to my D50 kit lens (18-55) set at ~28MM and the kit lens had much better image quality and color than the Sigma. I really wanted to like the sigma lens too as I'm looking for a good standard lens that is fast. I think I'll be going with the Nikon 35mm f2.0.

<br/><br/>

Cheers,

Chris

Wonderful results on a few images I tried it on. Thank you!

First let me give a big deep belly laugh! Ha! There are a lot of good suggestions, and a lot of silly ones too. :) I really like the rating system and would definitely like more comments/feedback but that is dependent on the user community at large so I agree with the person that said if you try to enforce them, you'd get "asdf". I also like the idea regarding dropping off photos from the critique that get X number of less than X for ratings. It's a pain in the ass to look at 50 pics of someone's camping trip before you get to a pic that someone put a lot of work into. It'd be nice if after X number of poor ratings if they'd just kind of stop showing up. Of course that'd eliminate half my stuff but so much the better! Tee Hee.