Funnily Marcus I allready have one or two (web domains).
I've been slowly working on putting some of my travel photos online I've got to make some changes to the navigation but if you follow this link I have a Website - (there goes my bandwidth) there are some of my travel photos here, in the next couple of weeks Tanzania, Zanzibar and Malawi will appear. and in the other interests section are some OM meet photos!
Chris - Thanks for the reply. That's a whole different world of battery life from what I experience with my 4500. In subzero temperatures I'll be lucky to get 5 or 6 photos from the original battery and my cheap aftermarket one from 7dayshop will give me one photo and that's it! However, once back in the warmth the same 'flat' batteries will take many more shots. I sense a letter to Nikon asking for advice is a good idea.
It really sucks and my camera is useless in the winter. It's back to the compact 35mm until the temps warm up!
PS: I was headed up to the Chalamain Gap back on the 21st of August and was passed by a sprightly chap with a resemblance to yourself and a tripod strapped to his pack. Was this your very own self? If so, I was the guy doing the Al Qaeda impersonation with the midgie headnet! :-)
As a full-time professional photographer ( UK Landscape & Travel Photographer Of The Year 2004, BPP Awards October 2004), I can offer an opinion:
Our social photography business has been fully digital for over four years. We made the conversion when we felt that the "quality" of digital capture was good enough at a realisitc cost. During this period, our capital outlay stands at over £35,000 on equipment and continues to rise. We have gone through Fuji S1's and S2's and a Kodak 14n Pro , This year alone, we have worn out 2 Nikon D100's (our back-up cameras!) The autofocus mechanism has given up the ghost on both, and have currently a D1x in for repair. For next year, we have budgeted for 2 Nikon D2x's and 2 Macintosh G5's with Apple displays to replace our G4 Quicksilvers. This is the downside of conversion to digital workflow for us. The hardware is delicate, expensive and requires regular upgrading and replacement.
However, the benefits of digital conversion to our social business are huge: total control, little material wastage, absolute freedom of creativity and no pro-lab involvement as we print in-house. My partner, Julie, has twice been the MPA UK Wedding Photographer Of The Year, with the obvious publicity and increased business as a result.
Now, we have another side to our business that is, for the time being, film based. I shoot a lot of landscape and stock photography for a variety of end uses. For instance, one of my clients is a design company who specialise in fabric and interior design. A selection of images of icebergs and glaciers that I took in Alaska in September are being used for a range roller-blinds, bathroom carpets and ceramic tiles, etc. The images are often printed onto a variety of materials at very large sizes, way beyond the imaging ability of a pro-spec dslr. That's why I use a Fuji GX617 and a Mamiya 7(2).
So, from a pro's point of view, it's horses for courses.
As most OMers are amateur photographers, consider this: If you shoot colour negative film, your prints are made digitally and will only be as good as the settings or operator on the Fuji Frontier that spits them out, regardless of the camera and lenses you use. If you shoot mainly transparency, then a dslr is worth considering for the options that are available to you with digital files. Sure, you can buy a scanner and scan your trannies. The first roll of 36 are fun, after that you'll die of boredom.
Geoffrey - I've been through the Chalamain Gap three times this year but not on August 21 so it wasn't me.
Your battery experience is more like the one I had with a Ricoh digital camera several years ago that ran on AA batteries. In cold weather I carried the batteries in an inside pocket in order to get more than a few shots per set.
Colin Prior's been saying he's got a Canon 1Ds on order for about 6 months now! I don't know why this is, but I noticed it because like Cameron, I was very interested to see a famous pro declare that he's moving to digital.
I think a year or two ago, it became quite clear that digital quality had equalled film quality; it wasn't always that way, but that's what technology does: it progresses.
Now it seems that with top level digital SLRs, you can equal if not exceed the advantages of large format film. Which is an amazing advance, considering all the 'workflow' benefits of digital. Digital is *different* to film rather than directly equal, but the results are equivalent if not superior in a different way. Especially important is the low 'noise' of a digital sensor, compared to the obvious grain of film.
There are of course considerations of storage, software, memory cards, batteries etc which will not suit some people. But what no one has mentioned so far is the way digital frees you from the high street lab and the horror-story anxieties that they will mess up the negatives from your lifetime trip up Everest. And additionally, with the digital method you effectively have your own desktop darkroom: you are in creative control at every stage of the process, which is otherwise expensive/unlikely/only for the committted few with access to a darkroom.
