AboutSteve Meltzer Expertise I am a professional photographer and I've been shooting for newspapers, magazines, commercial clients and artists for over 30 years.
I have shot stock photography for dozens of years and in 1977 created West Stock (Seattle, WA) which was one of the first to produce stock photo CDs and later one of the first to establish an online stock photo slaes site.
I have a new book on digital photography "PHOTOGRAPHING ARTS, CRAFTS AND COLLECTIBLES (Lark Books, 2007)which is available at Amazon.com, eBay.com and in bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders. I have another book, CAPTURE THE LIGHT which will be puiblished in November, 2008.
I write 20-30 feature articles and columns for regional and national publications a year.
My education includes studying with photographers like Cornell Capa, Duane Michels and Oliver Gagliani (from the Ansel Adams Center.)
This is again about photographing oil paintings.I was going to go with the Bridge camera you recommended before, but my wife, how's very interested in phography insist on expending a little more and getting a SRL camera. So we'll get the tungsten light and invest a little more on a srl camera, something between $500-700. What would be our best options? We are thinking Nikon or Canon.
Here's the deal for $500-700 you can get a dSLR with a kit lens. The lens has a narrow zoom range and unless you PLAN to buy more lenses it makes no sense to get a dSLR.
For example. I just got a new Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ35 (at list price $400). It is a 12 MP camera with a 27-486mm lens (that is in 35mm terms) and it focuses to very small distances. The lens is a Leica design and when I spent two weeks in Paris at the end of September I took the fZ35 and left the dSLRs home. The camera has this power stabilzer system and I swear to god I was shooting pictures at night at 1/15th second and getting sharp shots. I'll try to attach one to this note.
There are no 12 MP Nikons for less than $800-900 so you are looking at a 10MP camera. The D3000 is probably the best choice and with a lens it is in your price range. But you lose 2 MP of sensor power. Similarly you are looking at Canon EOSs with 10MP sensors in this price range.
Soooo....do what you want. Having a dSLR is for many people a sign of being a real photographer. For me it is silly. The photographer takes pictures and not cameras.
Unless your wife really needs to shoot sports (for which you'll need to spend another $500 for a long lens for either the Canon or Nikon) or needs to shoot at high ISOs in low light (with the power stabilizer the FZ35 I was shooting at night at ISO 200) or she can come up with some solid cogent argument for spending more on a dSLR (like she really likes Nikon's Ashton Kusner ad) consider the FZ35. And it take HDTV movies too....
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