what camera made you decide to go digital?

treeman

treeman

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I'm curious to know, which model, in the main camera maunufactures line up, did you decide to go digital?

I suppose to elaborate, I'm wondering what model did you decide the quality was good enough to stop using film cameras. I'm also wondering whether that camera would be good enough quality for you now?
 
A Nikon D100 in 2003. The same camera which made me realise I wanted to go back to film!


Steve.
 
I still use film cameras :D I have a Canon 400D but don't really use it that much
 
The Nikon D80 was my first. It was a combination of price and quality. When I picked it up, it was going for around £500 body-only, having originally been on sale around the £800 mark. I liked it because I could use all my old lenses with the body (unlike the D40 and D60 at the time).

It's still the camera I use today - I'm very happy with the results I get from it, it's simple enough to work and it does the job. It'll be a long time before I get anything else.
 
Canon 350D - when decent image quality, good res. and capable features all came together in one affordable package :cool:

To be fair though it probably had more to do with when I could afford to spend that sort of money - a year earlier and it would have been a 300D, a year later a 400D or whatever the corresponding Nikon was at the time..
 
Canon 5D. I read an article in a Guardian photo supplement from a landscape photographer who was raving about its colour rendition. He also mentioned that the 5D was full-frame, which was very important to me as the change in effective focal length with crop sensors had put me off going digital. Up until this point I used to shoot on colour slide film, mainly Kodachrome.

Got my 5D last year, now on a 5D mk II and never looked back :love:

A.
 
Canon 300D in 2003... and still use it as my only DSLR today. It was marketed as the first affordable DSLR with a sensor good enough to compete with film. I think there is loads of misplaced perceptions with mega-pixel count driven by manufacturers marketing - it is 6MP and produces good quality images to this day. Limitations in photography are mainly with the photographer not their equipment. I will eventually upgrade to something like the 5D... one day!
 
My first digital camera was a Sony DSC F707 that I still have today. I was advised to buy it by the camera shop I got it from as it had a facilty to send small file sizes for emails making them easier to send as I sent pics of watches to my friends over the net. I never actually used that facility and always sent larger pics. 1280 x 960 I think and the pics look great. I'm sure they don't stand up critically to you guys on here as I know very little about photography and use it as a point and shoot in Auto everything mode but people have often commented that I always send them good pics. It was bought in 2002 and has up to 5.2mp, Carl Zeiss Auto Zoom Lens, lots of facilities and a great camera imho. Just bought a new old stock D2HS and am going to have to learn from scratch about photography. I am very interested in getting some good lenses and then will start learning. Guess I should learn first really but hey ho I've always gone in at the deep end and taken things from there. Not the way to do things I'm sure. Still love the Sony and it takes great pics.
 
In late 2004 I saw a professional wedding photographer using a Nikon D70! I was very sceptical until I saw the images in print. Even blown up the images looked fantastic. In early 2005 I got my first digital SLR, a Nikon D70s. I kept my F90X Pro and fully intended to use it, after 6 months I'd only picked it up a couple of times and not used it all that much at all so I sold it to buy more digital gear.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Fuji DX-10 back in '99 - 0.81mp - came "free" with a pc...
Click to expand...

Something like this for me too. Can't remember the make or model though. Been too many in the meantime...
 
This was my first digital camera.. back in 1997!!! :shake: I didn't realise I was so old!!

It's a Ricoh RDC-2

rdc2_back_lcd.jpg
rdc2_front.jpg


At an absolutely ground breaking 0.4MP.... the images were...... terrible!
 
I think you've asked 2 different questions.

treeman said:
I'm curious to know, which model, in the main camera maunufactures line up, did you decide to go digital?
Click to expand...

Canon EOS-10D. First that offered "enough" quality at a low enough price.

treeman said:
I suppose to elaborate, I'm wondering what model did you decide the quality was good enough to stop using film cameras. I'm also wondering whether that camera would be good enough quality for you now?
Click to expand...

That didn't mean I stopped using film cameras. My film stuff finally went when I got a 5D.
 
jontucker said:
This was my first digital camera.. back in 1997!!! :shake: I didn't realise I was so old!!

It's a Ricoh RDC-2

rdc2_back_lcd.jpg
rdc2_front.jpg


At an absolutely ground breaking 0.4MP.... the images were...... terrible!
Click to expand...

Looks nice though.....for a portable dvd player :lol:
 
Nikon D70 and I still use it now and again.
 
You asked a question. You shouldn't have an expectation of the answers. If you did, there was no point in asking!
Click to expand...

Well I thought that saying...

what model did you decide the quality was good enough to stop using film cameras
Click to expand...

Might have ruled those of you that were using film.

My apologies if you felt it didn't.
 
400d then I bought some film cameras and sold it :)
 
In that case:

treeman said:
what model did you decide the quality was good enough to stop using film cameras.
Click to expand...

Still the D100. Then I changed my mind as it wasn't.

It's not a quality issue with me though, it could have a 900 million pixel sensor and I still wouldn't be interested. It's more to do with the amount of tedious time sat in front of a computer. I didn't get into photography to become a computer operator.


Steve.
 
My EOS 300.... after the combination of it, the film and the developers cocked up a once in a lifetime set of photos for me I decided I needed to be able to check things as I went along with a DSLR...
 
When I fell victim to a drop shipping scam for a 400d with a bunch of accessories for £200.

Obviously it fell through, and I ended up buying a brand new 350d for £260.

First digital camera, heck, it was my first camera!

Talk about in at the deep end!
 
Gordon Scott said:
Canon 300D in 2003... and still use it as my only DSLR today. It was marketed as the first affordable DSLR with a sensor good enough to compete with film. I think there is loads of misplaced perceptions with mega-pixel count driven by manufacturers marketing - it is 6MP and produces good quality images to this day. Limitations in photography are mainly with the photographer not their equipment. I will eventually upgrade to something like the 5D... one day!
Click to expand...
:plusone:
 
I bought an Olympus something-or-other P&S in Bosnia back in 2000 to take happy snaps and ended up putting the F5's away for the duration of the Tour as a result...
Though I still used film for as long as I could get away with it after that Tour ended...
Eventually, I bought a D1x in 2002...
 
d100, came in at the right price to stop me shooting film, though i still did for certain types of shot, landscapes and so on.

i think i finally got rid of my film gear a year or two after that, when the d2x came out.

though the first digital camera i had was a 1.3mp fuji (i think) - still have it somewhere, it was about the size and shape of a housebrick.
 
It's a good question though. I was going to start a thread a couple of weeks ago on the same theme except my question was going to be "what made you a digital convert?" Didn't get round to it. Dunno if that's the same question you are asking exactly - but for me it was a trip to Australia in 2002. I was cycling for 6 months, so left my Minolta Dynax SLR at home. It was gathering dust anyway having churned out hundreds of drearily average pictures. I bought instead a 2.1mp Canon Ixus costing £210 which was tiny, weighed nothing and my expectations of it were low. Yet my digital conversion was almost instant - I thought it was brilliant. Loved it. Took thousands of shots which I viewed each evening on my HP Jornado then burnt onto disc and sent home at monthly intervals. Hard to say the exact moment my digital conversion happened but it may have been with this shot that I realised that even basic digital cameras were capable of amazingly good things.

2574115738_a16f56779d_o.jpg
 
A canon 20D. I didn't want entry-level, nor did I want to go top-of-the range. It seemed like the perfect solution. I don't think Nikon did a mid-range model then.

I'd been using Contax film equipment, and I found the change to Canon digital an absolute nightmare. I hated it.

So the secondhand EOS 30 film body which I'd bought "for emergencies" became my main camera for a few months, then I upgraded to a 2ndhand EOS 3, which was great.

After about 2 years with my 20D mostly sitting in the cupboard, the EOS 3 developed a fault and I decided I'd have to take this digital thing seriously.

The 20D very quickly became a 40D, which then became a 5D.

I still yearn for the days of film, but the digital genie is unfortunately out of the bottle, and it feels like there's no going back.
 
Probably a Canon Ixus V3 that I got for Christmas 2002. Before that i'd had a succession of 35mm film cameras, SLR and compact. The Ixus did what I needed a camera to do at the time. Was small, solid and reliable, and did everything I needed right up to Christmas last year. Only thing I'd spent in that time was a series of larger and larger CF cards.

This year I decided that I really would like a SLR again, and I purchased a EOS450D. After 6 months of intensive learning how to get the best out of a SLR (the joys of not worrying about failed frames, and embedded exif details to re-construct what DID work) I decided that I also wanted to be able to shoot film again. So, I've now got a EOS-3 film camera as well, and can't at the moment see me dropping film and going exclusively digital - though i do have a "hybrid" workflow on 35mm - I'll dev. my own BnW then scan and print in digital, C-41 goes to local labs and either they scan or I do. Printing is definitely via the digital route, as I've not got the space for a darkroom.
 
Never stopped shooting film

Bought an Olympus E-20P loved the images out of it, then 2 years later bought an Olympus E3 and love the images out of that.

In the same time frame think I have bought\acquired 7 or 9 film cameras :D
 
My first foray into digital was around 10 years ago, with a P&S 1.3 mp camera, the images completely blew me away, finally graduated to an Olympus E20 a 5mp bridge camera, but it was the Canon 10D that finally made me ditch my nikon film cameras and lenses, and fully embrace digital.
 
I think the Canon 10D was the camera that first made me think about going fully digital, although I held off until the 20D.
 
I used to use the Contax N1 film body and when they introduced the Contax N1 digital I fell in love, could never afford 1 (I will buy 1 one day just to actually HAVE 1) My first REAL digital camera would of beed the Nikon D70 I think but I did own a Fuji 0.3 MP camera and also a Nikon 600 0.8 MP that came with a side flash and cost a bloody fortune too (I still have it)

Now of cause I am with Canon
 
d70.

But it wasnt the camera, it was just part of the job specification 'must have digital camera'. As soon as I gave up the work that required a digital camera I sold all my digital kit and went back to film :D
 
Playing around with my mates Canon 20D a few years ago I knew I had to go and buy a DSLR. I went straight out the next day and bought a Nikon :D :thumbs:
 
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