No more whingeing

... about digital cameras, at least.

For a while.

Probably.

Anyway... this is bound to be painfully boring for most regular readers of this site, but if you're not endlessly fascinated by the minutia of equipment decisions, just skip to the photos at the end.

To recap, here's where we've been.

• The Leica Digilux 2 was announced. I was tempted.


• Leica announced they were actually going to build a 10 megapixel digital "M", which is the digital camera I've wanted since, well, I started shooting digitally at all.


• But it's going to take two years.


• Suddenly the Digilux 2 is less exciting. It's inherently noisier and less flexible than the digital M will be, or a digital SLR.


• So maybe I should just get a new Nikon D70 when it comes out, since I got all them Nikon lenses.

To cut to the chase -- since even I'm bored with this story -- I made a radical choice and bought a Canon EOS 10d. Why? Here's a few random notes:

• I don't really like Nikon's digital SLRs. They work fine, sure, but they're just not up to the image quality of the Canons. They're noisier at the low and high ISO ends, for one thing.


• Canon publishes their Canon Digital SDK, which makes it much easier for third-party developers (from Chris Breeze to Adobe) to write useful conversion tools. Nikon keeps theirs a secret, because, uh, they don't want people to write tools that can use their cameras?


• I've felt for a few years like Nikon was about 1.5 steps behind Canon in getting seriously into digital. They're getting there, sure, but they're definitely following, not leading.


• I've used both a Canon Powershot G2 and G3 and I've been very impressed at the image quality I got out of them, as well as the ergonomics and UI. I haven't had the same response to the Nikon prosumer cameras.

So I traded every scrap of Nikon gear I own in on a 10d and a beautiful (and heavy) 24-70 f/2.8 lens. And imagine my surprise when I had this conversation with the saleswoman:

"So, uh, why are you getting out of Nikon instead of waiting for the D70?"

I summarize my reasons. She nods. "Yeah, a lot of people are actually doing that. I did. I had an F100 I loved, but I got rid of it for a 10D."

So there you have it. I did the deal yesterday morning, had a little lunch, got my bearings on the new camera (nothing's where my fingers expect it to be), and headed to the UW to take advantage of the sunny day and practice.

First I shot some plants...

Then I shot some concrete...

And some random UW scenes...

And then I ran into three thousand people viewing the cherry trees.