Digital SLR

Well, I'm glad I decided not to buy that digital SLR camera. Just two weeks ago I was really torn. I spent countless hours researching the best ones I can afford, but in the end I decided to wait. And boy am I patting myself in the back right now. Prices for most has come down dramatically. THe only good deal two weeks ago that still holds true today is Canon's Triple Rebate, where I would have spent $1300+ upfront and get about $300 rebate. Nikon's D70s, which topped my list, was listed at $1120 two weeks ago. It's now down to $1000. Olympus also released a first ever digital SLR with a real-time electronic view finder.

In other camera news... Nikon has decided to exit the film camera market. The news came out a few days after I wrote something about "film is not dead" mantra. I guess, in term of market for it, it is dying. But there will, be companies that will supply film camera for a while. Maybe not for 35mm cameras, but for those that print magazines uses. Digital's resolution will have to increase to more than 100MP to match those with picture files in hundreds of megabytes. Plus there's all those nice landscape shots on calendars.

Also, Konica-Minolta has decided to exit the camera market all together. They sold all their knowledge to Sony. Pentax will be next. They signed a partnership with Samsung recently, and have released a Samsung-rebranded dSLR. Its only a few months before they sell everything all together. Before Konica-Minolta exited the market, they signed a "partnership" with Sony. So I guess it's gonna be Sony and Samsung fighting Canon and Nikon. Sony and Samsung are elecrtonic companies, and will probably out-do Canon and Nikon in CCD and CMOS technology, but it'll take them a while to catch up in optics. On the other hand, Sony has recently released a camera with, and has a partnership with, Carl Zeiss. A company known for their optics.

This means pressure will be on Canon and Nikon, two companies that combined to control 90% of digital photography last year. But with Sony and Samsung coming into the dSLR market, its only a matter of time before they catch up.