30

Sure, but the sharp ones are really cool, and of a quality I can only wish for getting with my skills/equipment :-) The richness of detail of the feathers is occasionally stunning.

Thanks for a quick-peek into the world of professional publishing. Although I suspect that the blanket dismissal of anything but SLRs is made mostly out of convenience for the publisher. If the EXIF fields of some of the birdies in the dpreview thread would be altered from, say, SX30 to 30D, I'd almost bet no-one at Alamy would notice. But then again, I often loose my bets, too.

31

dp have the best reviews.
No contest.

32

Is it sensible to buy a second-hand digital camera?

My gut feeling is that they would be less reliable than a film camera.

I mean, people still use cameras from the 1970s, right? Would a digital camera last 40 years?? Or even three or four years?

33

Yes, why not?
I friend of mine uses an old 4MP compact, must be quite a few years old...

Depends as well what kind of camera you re talking about. Cameras from the 70ies are usually not compacts, but range finders and SLR's. Those weren't the cheapies back then.
Plus how many of the millions and millions made since the 70ies are still operational?
Not a whole lot me thinks...

So compare that to a standard dSLR which is rated for 150'000 shots today...many won't even have 10% of that after years of use.

Of all digital camera failures I know of - and I have taken quite a few to the service centers for friends - one was due to a faulty sensor however this was a know production fault and it was replaced for free. All other were due to drops, usually with the lens damaged/stuck in compacts or the pop up flash damaged.
+++++

34

One problem is that you might not be able to get "film", that is, memory cards that fit your camera too long into the future. The reason I had to give up my Olympus C-765 was that my memory cards started failing, and it was impossible to get new cards; the camera only accepted 512 MB xD cards or smaller, and the smallest ones in production at the time were 1GB cards.

Wouldn't be too surprised if standard SD cards would soon completely give way to SDHC cards and such, while plenty of not too old digicams only eat original SD cards, for example.

35

Looking around the shops I was surprised how expensive the cameras are these days. Mind you, I daresay the companies have figured out they make a lot more money selling cameras that are of a higher standard than most users require.

Anyway, one of the better deals seemed to be the EOS 450D (18-55) for US$580.

Anyone have any thoughts on that?

36

Entry level dSLR are among the best bang for the buck in my opinion.

In particular the large-sensor compacts come with quite a hefty price tag for a slightly more compact package, which isn't really pocket size either.

The 450d or Nikons d3100 are certainly good deals.