Pentax K200d

The time has come to replace my poor little dinged up Olympus point and shoot. I love that camera, and call it Mojo for its stunning ability to catch impossible shots like this moving-car photo of a Philadelphia train station.

The big disadvantage of a point and shoot is lag. Between power up and the first pic is like 7 seconds for Mojo. That's a photographic eternity. And the lag between pressing the button and taking the pic is also pretty bad. So back to an SLR, this time digital, DSLR.

I kept procrastinating, but then at SXSW Chris Brogan let me use the Nikon D60 DSLR that they sent him to evaluate. (Ask him about how I stole it out of his hands, just so I could play with it!) A very nice camera. So then I had to buy a DSLR!

The Pentax is no where near as popular as the Nikons and the Cannons. But it is terrific, I think. And it uses AA batteries, helpful when traveling to Peru and Namibia. And it can use my old Pentax flash and a few other 20 year old accessories from the Pentax SLR my dad gave me when I graduated from high school. Bonus!

Superb resolution, up to 10MP, excellent reaction time (instant), and I sprang for the 300mm zoom lens. That's a lot of zoom.

It won't make me a better creative artist. But it will make it easier for me to do some things I want to. And that is worth it.