An Eyeful of Dazzling Choices

Welcome to the confusing serious compact camera market as what the Middle Ages of battling kings and knights was in history (0r the Warring States Period in the Chinese history for that matter)!

The photography community has recently made much ado about the dazzling launches and releases of new brooms by camera makers sizzling at each other. On one hand, how can we users not be excited at this "correct" course of giving more substances to a wider array of cameras at cheaper prices? On the other hand, however, we could be overwhelmed by the enormity of the question facing us: what the camera makers are driving at in the future to the detriment of our purse?

The camera makers are probably at their combative best in slaughtering for the market share since the last similar blooming period at the advent of 35mm camera. New cameras are always being in hot pursuit. Naturally, under this climate, we are more easily drummed by the dazzling ads into buying more of them. Afterall, nowadays most photographers should more correctly be called camera connoisseurs than photography savvies.

At one point, we hailed the coming of the serious compact with a fast F1.8 lens. Then, before it could really be differentiated from the likes of it with forever evolving yet seemingly randomly given code names, we are tempted with the similarly sized option with light-weight body and lenses plus a sensor outshining the fingernail-sized cousins. We could at one point have thought that we had to buy both.

And then, we are told that new wine in an old "bottle" is beautiful. If a EVF is good and an OVF is great, why not blend them together to make it even greater? But wait a minute, are we too excited to even think about what the point is behind the whole X shebang?

Not long ago, we in the serious camera camp almost loosened our tightly clasped purse in the face of the sexy EVIL from Sony. Luckily, or unluckily depending on from where you look at it, it lacks the user-friendliness in ergonomics. And the newly released 18-200mm E-mount lens reveals that the camera is not really built for the hands of normal adults. The combination just hasn't taken into account the effect of gravity. It tends to droop all the time and the users have to convince the lens to turn the ring at their command.

So here we are with the a55, which is not a compact but small enough to rightly balance the disadvantages of being larger and the advantages of having an individual chip to do the focusing, which is already fast by the strength of the new technology. The EVILs are not slow in focusing for most of the time. But it is the "for some of the time" that makes their jack-of-all-trade sensors potentially unreliable when they are expected to focus fast and sharp. Not a deal breaker but, with the modestly prized a55, enough to deepen the dilemma facing the purchasers.

We are almost dazzled; almost because any sane buyers can learn from their past buying experience. When Minolta launched its then state-of-the-art Dynax or Maxxum or Alpha 7, which inherited the advanced technology but without the pirce tag from the 9, photographers gave it a big hand and handed over Minolta the money.

Are we saying that the 7 was actually not worth the admission price? No. Far from it. In fact, its eye-start auto-focusing speed, as I tested it last night, is just a millionth split of a second slower than a55's. Well, at least for well-lit scenes. The quantum leap in technology hyped for the a55 could therefore be reduced to somewhere much less exciting indeed. This is not to say the the a55 is no good. It can be the Bucephalus to the right photographers. You just have to know how to steer it away from the shadow and use the best of its merits.

In this light, the point is: do you know how to best use the new technology of the camera you covert? In other words, are you sure that the camera suits your needs? What is as important is that the camera should be able to grow with your skills. If you can outgrow it in a matter of months, leave it in the window display. It is not for you.

At this point, we have reduced the dilemma with dazzling choices to one simple rule of thumb: take the camera which suits your present photographic needs and your next several stages of skills.

It is not foolhardy to predict that we will see lots of development in the camera market in the coming few years. Surely, much much more than the last decade, not least because Nikon and Canon (for Canon, rumours have it that it may join as early as the coming October) are joining the battle soon. Just because that is the case, doesn't mean that we must lose our mind and buy cameras like crazy. This is not a matter of money but sanity. An extra last note: there may be more new cameras out there than ever, but ask yourselves if yours is/ are good enough before shelling out money for more. If you really need to burn money, burn them for the expensive quality lenses.