Cheap camera owners of the world unite

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Cheap camera owners of the world unite

Monday, December 8th, 2008 | Photos |

Via Ken Rockwell, it turns out that the winner of the Metro Global Photo Challenge took the prize-winning photo with a pocket-sized Canon Digital Elph SD500.

I can believe it. The two photos of mine that have been published were taken with the previous-generation SD400, a little 4 megapixel point-and-shoot, set to automatic everything.

Here’s a similar story, found at Nikon D40 Photographer. Guy takes a picture. He uploads it to his Flickr account. Hollywood types contact him to get permission to use his picture in the Iron Man movie. He took that photo with the Nikon D50, which, while not exactly cheap, was the cheapest DSLR Nikon had ever made up to that point.

The newer D40 is even cheaper. I bought my D40 for $479 last year, which is less than I paid for the SD400 point and shoot four years earlier. Now they’re about $400 with a starter lens. A Canon Digital Elph is now less than $200.

The first rule of photography is “have a camera.” That means you need to own a camera and have the camera close at hand so you can take the picture when you see it. You’ll take more pictures with the cheap camera you have than with the dream camera you leave in the closet because you don’t want it to get stolen, or that you never got around to buying because it was too expensive. Affordable and convenient are wonderful virtues.

UPDATE: Linoge has some great black and white photos from a Canon Powershot point and shoot that sells new today for less than $200.

Tags: d40, nikon

3 Comments to Cheap camera owners of the world unite

Linoge
December 9, 2008

To be fair, some of those were also taken by a Fujifilm point-and-shoot, and an Olympus C-5060, both of which probably retail for as much or less than the two PowerShots responsible for the rest of the pictures.

Thanks for the link, though!