"SLR-like" cameras?

[AquaticEnterprises]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here.

Being a fish breeder, I'm finding it would be quite beneficial to take good quality photographs of the livestock I have available. I think, for this purpose, it's about time to retire my well-used but still dependable Olympus D340R and look into something newer.

Forgive me, as I honestly know (and understand!) very little about cameras in general, and digital cameras in particular.

I'm finding that SLR cameras would be the way to go, but there's a lot of references to SLR-like digital cameras. Is this basically the same thing? As in DSLR? Or are there in fact two difference technologies at work here.

Any recommendations for cameras? I've been skimming through some of the other posts in here and have a few thoughts, but nothing concrete at this point.

Professional pictures are not required, but something with a zoom (hehe, when I bought my camera about 3-4 years ago, I thought I'd never need zoom! Now I know fish don't like their pictures being taken from up-close!) would be nice. Most of the rest of the specs are pretty foreign to me. Any good sites for a primer on digicams?

Thanks in advance...

Fred

[meriadoc]

Well, the SLR and DSLR things are two similar animals, but at the same time can be quite different. I mean, wide angle lenses on a film SLR are wide - but put the same lens on a DSLR the wide isn't as wide (if at all). That is of course unless you can afford the Canon 1Ds ;)

What is it you want most? Do you want the interchangeable lenses, or do you want a camera with a zoom?

If you go the DSLR route, then you have to spend more money on lenses (and good quality ones at that), and you'd probably have to invest in a decent macro lens (anywhere from $300+ depending on focal length). Then you'd probably want a wide angle, or even a telephoto.

If you don't want to go that route, there are plenty of good ZLRs out (a really weird name for quasi-slrs) - the Fuji Finepix S5000 is a 3mp camera with a 10x optical zoom - but the recorded/effective pixels are actually 6mp because of the shape of the recording pixels on the sensor. Then there's the S7000 - the next model up, which is a 6mp camera that effectively records 12mp (if i recall), both of these cameras have a 10x OPTICAL (ignore the digital zoom its worthless IMNTBHO) zoom, both of which have REALLY good macro features.

Then you've got the Nikon Coolpix 5700 and 8700 - 5mp and 8mp respectively. I've not had much experience with these two cameras, but I know people that have the 5700 and love them.

I myself prefer the flexibility of the DSLR - mainly because I do alot of wildlife and especially bird photography, I need the longer lenses, but also do alot of landscape work, and thus need the wide angle. Yes, wide angles on DSLRs are not as wide - but thats the main reason why I still shoot with film - for all my lanscapes (that and I love fuji velvia).

A good site for digitals? http://www.dpreview.com - indepth but relatively easy to understand reviews of current and former digital cameras.

Hope that helps somewhat :)

-- L

hey man, welcome to APF. Nice overview, L.

A couple of comments. I dont use zoom at all on my pics. I find that zoom takes away from the sharpness of the pics. I would rather shoot bigger and crop most of the time. There are plenty of cameras that will do the job, I suggest you read up here on lighitng also. A good lighting is as important as the camera.

If you got breeding systems set up, your lighting is minimal, and I really doubt you will be able to take nice pics in a setup that breeders are known to have. Separate one tank, put nice lighting on it, and use it as a photo tank. Depending on the type of fish you breed, it can be a really small tank. You dont want a lot of movement. I use a small 5g tank, which I painted black on all sides but the front. Works really well. Just give the fish a few minutes to adjust to the new tank.

As far as cameras, make sure you are looking ONLY at cameras that have manual controls for shutter speed, aperature, ISO and White balance. I also find that having a multi-spot focus really helps too.
Look in the gallery at people's pics, most of us have our camera listed on the left under our name, those are generally good choices.

Hope this helps.
Ed

[AquaticEnterprises]

Thanks for the information. Within a year or two, I'll be looking to upgrade again, and will probably look into the Canon Rebel EOS300 (I think that was it). For under $1000, it looks like it offers a lto of nice features.

Until then, the Canon Powershot S1 IS looks like it may be the way to go for a good camera at a good price point. The Fuji rated a little below the Canon as far as picture quality goes from everything I've read.

Good thoughts on the "photo" tank as well...do you simply siphon out 5g of the water from the display tank and then place the fish in it for a shrot period of photographs, or do you keep it up and running all the time?