Choosing a Digital SLR Camera

When I told my husband I needed to fork over lots of money for a new camera, he didn't bat an eye. Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that he failed to get me a Christmas present and is still in the doghouse....

Anyway, being the techie, he immediately started researching camera prices. Me, I took another approach. Rather than decide my purchase based on price, I began researching the best introductory digital SLR cameras and their features. That's not to say that I'm made of money, but I didn't want a $100 difference to be my deciding factor. So I read reviews and I checked out the photography boards on Flickr for some opinions.

Researching cameras, I learned all sorts of nifty photography vocabulary. I had to if I wanted to make any sense of the reviews. It turns out that the blurry area behind the subject of your photograph is called the bokeh. It's pronounced like bo - keh, with the last part kind of sounding like the Canadian eh. Eh? And here I've just been calling it the "blurry part."

It really seemed to come down to three choices for me:

Canon Rebel XTi
Nikon D40x
Nikon D40

Being completely anal and analytical (is that redundant?), I made a chart.*

	Rebel XTi	Nikon D40x	Nikon D40	My Completely Uneducated $.02
Price	$699.99	$699.99	$549.99	Seriously, folks, does that $0.99 really make a difference at that price point? Just call it $700 for crying out loud.
Megapixels	10.5	10.75	6.24	Bigger is usually better, right?**
Kit Lens Features	18mm - 55mm f/3.5-22 lens; EF lens mount for EF, EF-S, TS-E and MP-E interchangeable lenses	18-55mm f/3.5 - f/5.6 ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor lens	18-55mm f/3.5 - f/5.6 ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor lens	Most reviews indicated the Nikon kit lens is better than the Canon.
Shutter Speed	30-1/4000 sec. in 1/2- or 1/3 increments; bulb; X-sync at 1/200 sec.	30-1/4000 sec.	30-1/4000 sec. in steps of 1/3, bulb	Seems about the same to me. I have no idea what the steps of 1/3 are. I'm guessing f-stops controlling aperture.
Aperture Range	f/3.5 - f/22 (with included lens)	f/3.5 - f/5.6 to f/22 - f/38 (with included lens)	f/3.5 - f/5.6 to f/22 - f/32 (with included lens)	Decreasing aperture increases the depth of field (the range of the picture in focus) and f/2 to 22 is usually fine for a general purpose lens.
White Balance	Auto, daylight, shade, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, flash, manual	6 manual modes	6 manual modes	This information from Best Buy is just wrong. The Nikon cameras do have an automatic white balance setting and settings for incandescent, fluorescent, direct sunlight, flash, cloudy, and shade. In addition, you can use the preset to determine the white balance manually.
Flash Range	12'	55' at ISO 200	55' at ISO 200	Wow. The Nikons kick the Cannon's butt here.
Focus Range	11" to infinity	10.8" to infinity	10.8" to infinity	Does this mean I can take pictures of infinity? No? I was picturing a little figure eight-shaped Moebius strip out there somewhere floating around just beyond the horizon.
ISO Equivalent	100 - 1600	100 - 1600		This is film speed. Slower speeds are used for lower light and higher speeds are used with more light. But to completely confuse me, the number is actually a ratio and the 100 speed ISO equivalent is actually the slowest.
File Formats	JPEG (Exif 2.2), RAW	Compressed NEF (RAW), JPEG (Exif 2.21), DCF, DPOF	Compressed NEF (RAW), JPEG (Exif 2.21), DCF 2.0, DPOF	All I really cared about here was the ability to shoot in both JPEG and RAW formats. I have to try shooting in RAW just because I've heard so much about it. It takes a lot more post-processing, but is much more forgiving of mistakes. I like that idea!

*I'm learning something already, even if it is just how to write a table in html. The features from this table came from Best Buy's descriptions for the most part. If something is wrong, I'm blaming them.

**I don't want to hear any comments about how it's not the size of the wave, but the motion of the ocean. I know you were thinking it! OK, maybe I'm the only pervert.

After my nifty chart, I made a list of the things that I like most about my current camera, the things that frustrate me about my current camera, and tried to guess what I'd like in a new camera.

The first list actually made the decision for me. What I love about my Nikon the most is the picture quality. It takes absolutely gorgeous, crisp shots outdoors and in good natural light. For a point and shoot camera, my Coolpix can't be beat outdoors. That's why I bought it in the first place. Every review I read about the Nikon Coolpix mentioned the beautiful color and photo quality. Similarly, every review I read of the D40 and D40x said the same thing. The D40 has beautiful, crisp photo quality.

In fact, I even read a comparison of the Canon with the D40 and D40x, with some test shots done with the kit lens. The writer mentioned that the shots with the Nikon D40 and the kit lens had better photo quality than the Canon shot with quite expensive lenses. The article mentioned that you can't use cheap "glass" with the Canon.

The Canon has more options than the D40 and D40x, many of which mean nothing to me at this point. However, it has a depth of field preview the Nikon doesn't have and that seems like a nice thing to have. The D40 is about $150 dollars cheaper than the D40x or the Rebel XTi, depending on where you buy it. The numbers from above came from Best Buy, but that is *not* where I bought it or how much I paid.

One of the most frequently sited drawbacks to the Nikon D40x seems to be that autofocus is only supported for a couple of Nikkor lenses, even though you can use any Nikkor lens on the camera and focus manually. This doesn't really matter to me. Hell, I need to figure the darn camera out and work on the kit lens before I even think about buying new gadgets for my toy. By the time I am ready for more "glass," I'm sure there will be plenty of Nikkor lenses out there for me.

I went with the Nikon D40x. Hmmm...I already have a Nikon point and shoot camera and my last compact film camera was a Nikon Lite Touch that's still floating around my house somewhere. I'm sensing a pattern here....

If you're doing your own research, helpful reviews can be found here, here, and here. Those aren't even close to all of the reviews I read, but I'm too lazy to link them all!