Then along came Nikon, Minolta, Olympus and Pentax with dSLR cameras all priced south of $1,000. Now, be prepared for dSLR cameras just slightly more than $500 and with features that rival their semi-professional big brothers, and in some cases features their big brothers do not have, such as image stabilization built into the camera itself and not the lens.

Last year and this we have seen mergers and cooperative efforts between big camera and electronic companies. Look at Sony taking over Konica-Minolta and producing the Alpha 100 (priced at $999); Olympus and Panasonic merging technologies and producing a whole line of very different cameras at a wide variety of prices ($699 all the way to $1999 for the Panasonic). Then Pentax/Samsung introduced a whole range of cameras from $400 to $800 (street price with and without lens).

And now, along comes Canon with their new 10MP Digital Rebel XTi with a host of interesting features at a very attractive price of $799. Nikon also announced their new D80. Other lower priced models are sure to follow. If one is to believe all the hoopla, digital SLRs are selling big time and most manufacturers think they will outsell the point and shoot variety (those with 4x or less of optical zoom) within a few years. And now comes the dilemma for those who still have their film SLRs and collections of lenses, what to do, what camera to buy?

Just because you have three or four good lenses for your SLR doesn’t justify buying the same brand just so you can use your existing lenses. First off, you may NOT be able to use your existing lenses in a digital camera of the same brand (lens mount). If some of your existing lenses are 3rd party lenses, i.e., lenses made by Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, etc. they may or may not work well or at all with the digital SLR version. Sigma lenses from 5+ years ago have a tendency to produce the dreaded ERR099 message when placed on a Canon digital SLR. These lenses must be updated by Sigma. A new chip has to be installed in the lens. Unfortunately, Sigma may not have the chips needed so you may be out of luck. If you are buying a camera because you have lenses that will fit it, make sure they work. Bring ALL of your lenses to the store and try them in the camera, turn the camera on and go through all the shooting modes.

And then there is the “focal length multiplier” problem. On most Canon cameras the multiplier is 1.6. Thus a 50mm normal film lens becomes an 80mm lens, a 75-200mm zoom lens becomes a 120-320mm lens, and a nice wide-angle 24-50 zoom becomes a not so interesting 38-80mm zoom. On most Pentax and Nikon brands the multiplier is 1.5 while on the Olympus/Panasonic the factor is 2x.

This writer thinks that Panasonic misread the photo market with the $1999 camera. I think we shall see a much more attractively priced camera from them under $1000, probably around $800. Panasonic as well as Sony have a strong vested interest in not producing SLR cameras in the $500-$800 range since they already make a number of very nice SLR style cameras with large zooms and real dSLRs would cannibalize that market. Canon and Nikon both make very expensive image stabilized (shake reduction) lenses and may be loath to produce a camera with built in image stabilization such as being done by Sony, Olympus/Panasonic, and Pentax/Samsung.

So, what is a prospective buyer to do? In my case it was easy. I had already sold all my film and dSLR cameras along with their lenses (e-Bay) so I was starting from scratch. I knew that I wanted image stabilization (I.S.). I had tried it on the Canon S2 IS and loved it. I also knew that Pentax/Samsung was bringing out an image stabilization system based upon sensor compensation rather than the lens. The Sony/Minolta system is similar. This meant that all the lenses for those cameras became image stabilized, you could easily get by with far less expensive lenses and the total package would not break the bank.

Then there is the question of overkill. Do you buy a camera with features you will rarely if ever use, or even have occasion to use? Is it really necessary to have a camera shoot 5 frames per second over one that only does 2.5? What about 10MP versus only 6MP? How many shots can you get in a burst, 2.5, 5 or10, and how many are really needed? There is very little actual difference in the images taken with a $3,000 and a $500 camera. Do you need a camera with a 150,000 MTBF (mean time between failure) shutter cycle versus one with only an 80,000? The $500 to $800 cameras available today easily rival the $5,000 cameras used three or four years ago, and in many respects they are better.

In my case, I read the ads and found a Pentax *1stDL (6.1MP) on sale at Samy’s with a boatload of extras, very usable and worthwhile extras, extras I would have bought in any case. The camera was advertised for $549 (including 18-55 lens) and had a $100 rebate from Pentax which brought the cost down to $449. The freebies (SLIK tripod, 1 GB chip, 300 digital photos, and case) were worth about $150, so my net cost was about $300. No, the camera doesn’t have I.S. but Pentax/Samsung just introduced their K100D/Digimax GX-1S (6.1MP - $600 -$700 street price) which does have I.S. and will soon have a K10D (10MP) also with I.S. The DL will become my backup camera when I buy the I.S. version. Of course, should I decide to, I could probably sell the DL for close to what I have invested in it, but in the meantime I have had the pleasure (and some minor frustration) of using it, a really nice dSLR.

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