A nice wide aperture lens like Canon’s50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens ~$99  Lets you shoot in lower light and create those great shallow depth of field shots that your friends still using camcorders drool over.

I don’t care how steady you think your hands are, if you want professional looking video it needs to be rock solid and steady . Use either a tripod I recommend  Manfrotto 785 Video Grip Head Tripod $70 or use a steady-cam system like Manfrotto 585-1 ModoSteady 3-in-1 Camera/Camcorder Stabilizer and Support System.

Large cards – Video, especially HD video eats up space quick -
SD – SanDisk 16GB Extreme – SDHC Class 10 You can shoot fine on class 6 cards but the slower cards will be painfully slow to pull the video off of.

Compact Flash – SanDisk16 GB Extreme III CompactFlash Card

External Mic (if your DSLR has an external mic port) Much better audio quality over the built in mic port
Rode VideoMic Directional Video Condenser Microphone w/Mount

And you might want to read up on using all of the above in From Still to Motion: A photographer’s guide to creating video with your DSLR (Voices That Matter)

And feel free to ask for my thoughts on anything else you come across while researching shopping.  I wil be happy to share with you my thoughts and recommendations @camerarec.

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SIGMA 17-50MM F2.8 EX DC OS HSM

Sigma’s newest lens the 17-50 f2.8 followed by acronym hell is now available. Let’s break down those acronyms and features

EX – A nicer fit and finish on the exterior of the lens. Sigma uses the word Superior.

DC – Designed for smaller, crop-sized sensors

OS – Optical Stabilization, Canon calls it IS – image stabilization and Nikon uses the acronym VR – vibration reduction. Tiny gyroscopes in the lens allow you to shoot at slower shutter speeds without getting blur from shake or handshake.

HSM – Hyper Sonic Motor, Canon uses the acronym USM- ultra sonic motor and Nikon uses the acronym SWM – silent wave motor. It all translates to fast and quiet auto focus.

A longer post is in the works discussing the pros and cons of buying 3rd party lenses, namely Sigma and Tamron, versus the ones made by Canon and Nikon but in the short term I will say that recent Sigma lenses have been excellent and they seem to be doing a much better job of quality control. The more important question you may be wondering is why would or should someone shell out ~$670 for a lens that offers a very similar range to the kit lens included with entry level DSLRs from Canon and Nikon. Not enough reviews are in for me to recommend this lens yet but I will share with you what it is offering over the kit, which it really isn’t designed to compete with. It is designed to compete with Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens for Canon DSLR Cameras and Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Nikkor Wide Angle Zoom Lens both of which are over $1000. The Sigma has a constant aperture of f/2.8 as do both of the lenses linked above, this combined with the OS provides the potential for excellent low light shots. Once the lab tests come in I will update this post with comparissons to the two lenses above, but at a savings of $400 and nearly $900 respectively it would be might tempting for anyone needing a fast, low light lens. And because it is optimized for crop sensor cameras it is fairly compact.  One final note – those using DSLRs for video should give this a long look – again the OS combined with f/2.8  gives you a smooth lowlight lens.

Buy on Amazon

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Canon T2i – $899, Body only $799 | 18MP | 1080p @ 30fps | 29min 59 sec or 4GB movie clip limits |  9 point focus | 3.7 fps| 95% Pentamirror | 3″  1,040,000 pixels LCD | 18.7 ounces

My thoughts: offers all the video capabilities of the 7D at ~$800 less, SD Card memory(cheaper than the compact flash used by 7D), smaller/lighter body (some may not like the feel).  You lose the faster FPS of the 7D, the more precise AF abilities of 7D, and D90, the wireless flash control and a highly customizable control scheme.  Bottom line – this is more than enough camera for most folks. If you are primarily looking for a video camera I see little to no reason to buy the 7D over the T2i.  Put the dollars you save buying the T2i toward a nice lens. Note: as of May 04 the T2i is out of stock on Amazon and most reputable resellers so there is a bit of price gouging happening.

DPReview says: Quite simply, taken as a whole, it is the best camera of its class that we’ve ever seen, and one of those rare cameras that won’t look out of date in a couple of years’ time. (April, 2010)

Canon 7D – Body only $1599 | 18MP | 1080p @30fps | 29min 59 sec or 4GB movie clip limits |  19 point focus | 8.0 fps | 100% Pentaprism | 3″  920,000 pixels LCD | 28.9 ounces

Offers excellent ergonomics in weatherized body and control scheme that is highly customizable, external mic port for high quality sound, wireless flash control (allows remote triggering of 430ex and 580ex flashes), bright viewfinder(absolute pleasure to look through) with 100% coverage, battery life is approx 1000 shots

My thoughts: if you are making money from photography gigs, especially ones where you plan to use off camera flashes or are shooting sports and need the faster FPS you should consider  this camera, it is a stellar camera but it is hefty and solid and most folks reading this would be better off buying T2i and putting the savings toward lenses.

DPReview says: It offers excellent image quality in all shooting situations and an impressive speed of operation, combined with very good build quality and ergonomics. Both its specification and the results of our testing make it a very easy recommendation. (November, 2009)

Nikon D90 – w/ 18-105 lens $1021, Body only $749 | 12.3MP | 720 @ 24fps | 5min clip limits | 11 point focus | 4.5FPS | 96% pentaprism | 3″  920,000 pixels LCD | 21.8 ounces

My Thoughts: The D90 is an excellent photographic camera and the body only price is an amazing value. If you already have Nikon lenses it is a no brainer of an upgrade.  The build quality and ergonomics sits between the T21 and the 7D.  Where the D90 falters is video, Video is max 720 resolution, no external mic port, clips are limited to 5 minutes (which isn’t as bad as you might think) and video suffers from the jelly effect (straight lines look wavy when the camera is in motion) more than the T2i or 7D

DPReview says: After using and testing the D90 extensively, it’s hard to think of a better enthusiast-level camera. (October, 2008)

Which one should you get?

T2i unless you have specific and justifiable reasons for the 7D. D90 if you have Nikon lenses or have friends/family with nikon lenses you can borrow.

Want cheaper options? Read my Short/Sweet DSLR Guide

Need some lens recomendations? Read My Canon Lens Guide | Nikon Lens Guide [coming soon]

Feel free to leave comments or your thoughts.

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The Sigma 50mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro Excellent lens but you will need to get pretty close to your subject

The Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 1:1 Macro More reach, you won’t need to get as close but a little more limited in use and more expensive

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Iphoto, Aperture, Lightroom, Photoshop Elements, Picasa and other programs allow you to easily add keywords to your images and once those go online the popular photo sites all allow search and sort by keywords. It is well worth the time invested. You may not consider the amount of photos you have now to be overwhelming but the numbers will only continue to grow, you will only continue to get more forgetful and the technology that will allow searching and sorting based on keywords is only going to get better – No reason not too in my mind.

Leave a comment with your thoughts on tagging. Look for a short How-to video on using Lightroom to efficiently tag large groups of images.

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Updated: DPreview has the following summary line – Quite simply, taken as a whole, it is the best camera of its class that we’ve ever seen, and one of those rare cameras that won’t look out of date in a couple of years’ time.

Key Features:

• 18.7 MP -3″ Widescreen LCD with 1M dots, current “nice” LCD screens have 920K dots. Additional the screen is now the same aspect ratio as the images you shoot, no more letterboxing- just screen filling goodness of your photos.
• 1080p video at full 30fps(lower resolution selections at fast FPS) AND external stereo mic port – Up to now all the entry level models have relied on cheap mono mike for recording, sometime you even get the sound of the camera focusing in the audio track.  An external mic port allows for some seriously great audio quality.  At the recent CES in las vegas many of the bloggers/reporters were using Canon’s 7D w/ external mics attached  for recording interviews.  The T2i is now offering the same quality at 1/2 the price.
• Exposure Compensation +/- 5.0 (Excellent for HDR photography)- For years Canon has limited in camera exposure compensation to 2 stops +/-.  Moving to 5 allows for much greater latitude and control especially when shooting with HDR in mind.
• Auto ISO with selectable max
• Eye-fi specific menu settings, letting you setup and work with Eye-fi cards

On the Canon side this camera is now sitting between the T1i and the 7D, much closer to the 7D then the T1i

On the Nikon side this blows the D5000 out of the water and when comparing most features it also sits up the D90 which has been my “best camera for the money” pick for the last 6+ months.  D90 is still a better build, bright viewfinder and most folks find the ergonomics and balance to be better but if you care about video the T2i is an exceptional camera and value.  Even if you don’t care about video the features of the T1i look extremely exciting.

Full Press release

Pre-order T2i/550D at Amazon
Now in Stock at B&H Photo

Will you be upgrading?  From what? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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Full written review is coming soon along with a gallery of sample images.

Enjoy and remember to friend me on Facebook

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A note about Mega Pixels (MP). No longer should you choose one camera over another because it has more MP. Recently some camera manufacturers have reduced the number of MPs in order to increase low light performance. The SD400 and S90(both listed below) are two 10MP cameras that offer excellent low light performance for a P&S.

Super Budget
Panasonic Lumix LZ8K 8MP 5x Zoom Lots of features, easy to operate and image quality is excellent.

BudgetCanon PowerShot SD1300 IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 4x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7-Inch LCD (Silver) Lacks some of the frills of the other cameras but provides the Powershot reliability and excellent image quality in a variety of situations

Mid Level
Panasonic Lumix ZS7 12 MP 12x Zoom 3.0-Inch LCDHuge Zoom, HD video recording and excellent image quality in a form factor that slips into a pocket.

Between these twoCanon PowerShot SD4000 10MP 3.8x ZoomVery similar to the S90 below but with HDvideo. You lose the slick control scheme and a tiny bit of low light performance. But if you are looking for a traditional P&S form factor with excellent quality in video and stills this camera is hard to beat!

High end
Canon PowerShot S90IS 10MP 3.8x Zoom Extremely high quality images with very little noise, even at higher ISOs, almost DSLR like quality. Genius control scheme lets you have as much or as little control over manual shooting.

Hope this helps and please let me know if you have any questions.

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Speedy – Not only does the control scheme allow for quick setting changes the camera is very responsive. turns on and is ready to go quickly and shot to shot time is very good for a point and shoot.

Quality – I have only take 50 shots or so but the clear majority of those are excellent and especially at the higher ISO the lack of noise in some shots in stunning for a P&S camera.

Downsides – Battery life seems on the short side.  I haven’t run any scientific tests and I am certainly spoiled by DSLRs that easily get 500-1000 shots on a good battery but even for a P&S it seems short.  No HD video – this actually doesn’t bother me, but it is curious that Canon limited the video to SD quality.

Bottom Line – there is an awful lot to love about this camera, slips in a pocket, control scheme is genius and it takes excellent photos.  Buy a spare battery and you will be good to go.

Full review with sample photos and video coming soon.

S90 on Amazon

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The megapixel race has slowed and dare I say plateaued (this is a good thing) with camera manufacturers focusing on new features and better low light performance. Sure a good number of the models announced feature 14MP but we have been there for over a year now and some models announced are still at 10MP. Don’t get starry eyed about these 14MP cameras. Personally I would take a quality 10MP sensor, or even 8MP sensor over 14MP any day.

Features that we can look forward to:

• Face tagging in camera, iPhoto and Picasa has been able to do this on your computer for sometime now but this is the first I have seen the technology actually in the camera. These cameras will recognize faces, allow in camera tagging and easy uploading to Flickr, Facebook etc.
• Related to the above – one touch sharing to popular photo sites like Facebook, Flickr, etc.
• Sony added a model that does GPS tagging, automatically geo-locating your pictures for display on a map.  Including a Compass function that shows which direction you were pointing when the picture was taken.
• Not a feature but certainly worth noting, Sony and Olympus finally bowed to pressure and their newly announced cameras all support SD cards or provide adapters for SD cards.  Previously they used their more expensive and proprietary memory Stick and xD cards respectively.
• Related to the above, a few manufactures are now actually including enough in camera memory to use.   Kodak’s Slice has 2gb of internal memory and accepts MicroSD cards (just like your phone)
• More cameras with HDvideo including 1080i and more cameras adopting either H.264 or AVCHD video formats, both are far more efficient than the typical Motion JPEG
• More cameras with built in Wifi or the newer Jet Transfer technology which allows fast wireless transfers at very short distances.

Refinements to existing technology:

• Bigger/Faster SD Cards, the new format is SDXC for your SD cards and is currently very expensive with huge capacities – 32 & 64gbs
• Better low light performance, especially at the lower MP range.  Canon started this with their excellent S90 and G11 cameras, now a few other manufactures have opted to stay at the lower MP mark of 10MP and introduce technologies that increase low light performance- backlit sensors, increased stabilization/anti-shake, smarter noise reduction algorithms.
• Face recognition for focusing and exposure- this continues to improve, reducing the chance that you will get flashed out faces with your people shots
• Intelligent Sweep Panorama- Sony here againg and they released this feature in a few models last year, now refined you hold the shutter button down and spin left/right or move the camera up.  The camera takes up to 120 pics and stiches it all together into a panorama.
• More zoom in your pocket- Over a 1/3 of the models announced have 7x zoom or higher.  And a  large majority have 5x or higher.
• Touch screen and screen resolution- More cameras with the bright and more efficient AMOLED screens and several cameras with touch screen controls

Interesting Products:

• Kodak PlaySport HD Waterproof Pocket Video Camera due out on Apr 5, 2010 – Kodak’s Zi8 has gotten excellent reviews, better quality than Flip and the Zx3 looks to continue that with a rugged, waterproof and smaller version that actually costs less!

What  have I missed? there was certainly loads of information coming out of CES- share your thoughts below or find me on twitter @camerarec

Happy Shooting!

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