Camera
With a number of art groups on the Peninsula faced with photographing artwork, I felt that having the same camera might simplify instruction. So, which camera?
We needed a model that was current, had good optics, affordable price, and a large range of manual control. The Canon A710IS was introduced in August 2006, and started shipping in quantity in the fall of 2006. Currently (January 2007) priced at $280 from Beach Camera and others, it fits well within our budgets. More importantly, it features full manual exposure control, aperture preferred automatic, and custom white balance. We’ll use all of these in our studio work.
There’s a superb review of the camera at Digital Products Review: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canona710is/. I’ve grown to trust these folks over time. More detail than most reviews, and they generally give a balanced sense of the pros and cons. They gave the camera high praise, but also found two things they didn’t like:
A tendency to overexpose in bright, high contrast lighting. We’ll need to watch this closely, and use the camera’s exposure compensation if this becomes a problem. Overexposure in digital cameras is a fatal flaw, in that there is no easy recovery once the picture is taken.
Standard batteries tend to burn out quickly. They recommend using the highest rated batteries (2700 Mah). Another choice is to use the optical viewfinder instead of the large LCD screen. With this approach, they were able to get nearly 900 images between battery recharges.