Shannon

One of our favorite new sites just announced a wildflower photo contest running the from May 1 to June 15, 2004. For rules and prize information, check out the photo contest announcement on WildflowerHaven.com!

Best of luck, everyone! (Justin and I won't be entering, since we've crossed the line into pro photographer land, at least on paper, with the formation of our "Moore Photography & Design" business in August '03.)

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- Shannon Moore
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lost_but_found

COOL!!!

i will definitely be submitting in this! too bad i couldn't submit one of the pics i just took. oh well. gives me an excuse to get out and take some more shots! :cool:

speaking of excuses, i am currently trying to justify with my girlfriend how i should spend my money on a digital rebel. i was just offered a little gig with a friend taking wedding photos, but i can't do it with my A80.

kai

I've got your answer: (which is exactly how I sold my husband on the Digital Rebel idea) - the cost of developing film over the long term. the digital rebel camera body is, what, $800? you figure about $10/roll (or so, for simplicities sake) for developing... thats 80 rolls of film. divide that by 12 months a year, thats about 6 rolls a month. how much film you develop per month varies by person, I know. but I've been developing about 3 rolls a month for the past 1.5 yrs, so if I had a digital rebel, it would have just about paid for itself by now or so I convinced my husband. and since the lense for my elan 7E will be able to go on the digital rebel, I figure i'm all set... I figure that when I get the digital rebel, I'll actually shoot more since I wont be trying to save money on film developing...

i conveniently forgot to mention to him that we'll need a new computer to go with it...and software... but since he is a computer man, I don't think it'll be an issue i'll cross that bridge later...

Shannon

Justin and I have it made in this regard -- there's no convincing about the "necessity" of such purchases. The fun comes when we have to decide who gets to claim the newest purchase as their own. Over the years, that's resulted in us (trying to) alternate each purchase. For instance, I got the last new camera (my Canon EOS D60), so the next camera (a Canon EOS 1D Mark II) will be Justin's. Of course, the "selling point" is I'll get his "old" camera (Canon EOS 10D).

It's not quite as easy to justify when one of us wants a new computer, though we've successfully alternated on that as well -- my computer's a little over 2 years old now (we go at least 3 years per PC, with upgrades of memory, video, hard drive, etc. as necessary during that time), and Justin just got a new Dell desktop in January.

We definitely save on film processing and film purchases, and I know I personally take a lot more photos than I ever did as a film photographer. However, we also have invested a lot more into hard drive and backup methodologies (3 DVD-ROM drives in 3 years -- one in a laptop, the other two in our primary desktops) than we ever imagined in the pre-digital days. We went digital very early -- in fact, many of Justin's original prints and slides are scanned digitally on a Nikon film/slide scanner. Compared to trying to sort through negatives and slides, I'll take buying another hard drive on sale or burning more DVDs any day! Digital file storage, however, is quite a challenge. You have to get a little brutal with what photos you delete when you realize how many photos you're starting to amass (99+ gigabytes, in our case, and that's not counting thousands that aren't yet in digital format, from our pre-digital days.)

__________________
- Shannon Moore
Your Host @ WildTexas.com

Purchases in the Wild Texas Gear Shop support our continued operation. Thank you!

lost_but_found

my A80 is digital, soit is hard to use that excuse. she knows that i am now able to pick the good shots out and print them, instead of print the film and weed out the bad ones. plus, when i print a photo, i normally get large prints - so i end up paying about the same anyway . (she doesn't know that and hopefully isn't reading this!)




Shannon,
I ENVY YOU!!! i want the 10D, or actually the 1D for that matter, so badly!!! but i know i cannot sell Leslie on that. i am close to getting the rebel idea sold to her, and that's as good as it gets for me until i find a better job. (anyone looking to hire an autocad drafter out there???) but as it looks right now, the rebel is still low on "my" priority list. so it will be a while before i get one. my friend WAS talking about upgrading to the 1D sometime, and mentioned selling me his 10D. but last time i talked to him he was thinking about keeping it too (understandably).

Shannon

I don't know if you're getting your digital prints made at a local photolab or online. If it's the former, you might consider evaluating some of the online photolabs -- ezprints.com and shutterfly.com, for example (there are many others). Of course, you end up paying for shipping when you go this route, so it may cancel out any savings you might have locally.


I caught myself in a glitch above -- I meant Justin's next camera will be a Canon EOS 1D Mark II (for some reason, I had it in my mind he'd been spec'ing the Digital Rebel for purchase).

Anyway, for your situation, have you checked eBay? That might be an option to help reduce the purchase costs a bit. Before the Digital Rebel came out (effectively reducing the resale value of my D60 even further), I was going to sell my D60 on eBay and buy a 10D of my own (possibly on eBay, as well). If you can live without your current camera for a time, and your current camera is still marketable, you might consider selling your current camera to finance the new one.

Justin and I share all our camera gear, but for sanity's sake we both lay claim to a primary camera and lens so we don't head out on different photo excursions on the same day only to discover we're missing a key piece of equipment (It's happened, and isn't fun ...) The 10D has proven to be my favorite camera, due primarily to its higher ISO range, reduced noise at ISO 400 and above, and improved file storage (FAT32 -- fits more data than a D60 using the same CF card). Aerial photography has gotten me hooked on doing mostly manual focusing, but the 7 point autofocus system in the 10D is a grand improvement, as well. Can you tell I'm anxiously awaiting Justin's purchase of his new camera?

Is your girlfriend interested in photography at all? If she is, perhaps one option would be to give her your "old" camera in exchange for whatever new camera you purchase. This keeps the old camera 'in the family' (available for resale if it turns out she doesn't like it or gets hooked and wants something more powerful of her own -- beware of that hidden "danger" ) but may help in at least the arbitration phase of the new camera purchase. Otherwise, you could always use the truism that technology improves by leaps and bounds every year and at some point it makes sense to buy into that new generation. (Otherwise, I'd still be using a Kodak DC-265 digital camera to take all my photos... that was my first digital camera!)

__________________
- Shannon Moore
Your Host @ WildTexas.com

Purchases in the Wild Texas Gear Shop support our continued operation. Thank you!

lost_but_found

i get all my prints from either ezprints(now) and dpcprtins(the the challenge site i am part of). they are priced about the same. around 3.70 for an 11X14 print. i will never go to a local store again. i had a large print done by wolf camera and it cost some big bucks (around $20 i think) and was half as good as the prints i have got from online.

Leslie doesn't really take pictures. she is scared of cameras for some reason. so i can't sell that to her either. but she definitely supports me in whatever i do or want to do. and she loves to look at my photos. she pretty much understands my wanting this camera, but she can't justify my spending 1200 dollars to get the camera and lenses i want. i can, but she can't. but right now i don't have the extra money to get it. plus i am looking into to getting a new car. i will get one eventually, just have to be patient i guess. that is hard for me. i like instant gratification!! and i am bad about spending my money sometimes - well, most of the time. i like my toys!! and i like to get the best of the toys!

Shannon

Good to hear -- I was going to recommend you definitely look into that, if you weren't doing it already. It's certainly cheaper than investing in your own archival ink jet printer -- another way digital photographers end up spending wads of cash (guilty look... even though ours is a couple years old now, it's still near industry standard -- Epson 2200, 7 color pigment-based, archival ink jet printer).

I know the feeling well, and have had to temper my enthusiasm for new gear with changes in income. It actually can help your work, in that you learn how to maximize what you have currently. You may find yourself trying new things to extend the "life" of your present gear, and experimentation is always a good thing when it comes to photography (particularly digital). If I had to use my D60 for the next 3 years, I know I'd be fine, and that probably wasn't the case when I had more expendable income but still had the notion in my head that a new camera would mean better photos.

The one area I still believe makes a huge difference, and unfortunately involves a fair $$ investment, is better lenses. I've been shooting more extensively with our f4.0 Canon "L" (pro) 300mm lens and I can see the difference in sharpness versus our standard lenses. I'm not familiar with other camera brands, but all the majors probably have a line of "pro glass" (high end, professional lenses) that offers similar results. Unfortunately, you're looking at the price of a high end SLR body for these lenses, but maybe that's a better use of limited funds? Something to think about... it's best to borrow or at least test out these lenses before investing in them, because they *are* an investment. And insure them, unless you're a gambling type -- that saved our bacon a couple years ago when our first expensive lens got damaged.

__________________
- Shannon Moore
Your Host @ WildTexas.com

Purchases in the Wild Texas Gear Shop support our continued operation. Thank you!

Turn Key

Dang!
Got an outstanding "bluebonnet" shot I took about 6 mile south of Burnett. Would be great for this but I took it about the middle of April.
Oh, well. Maybe next time.

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