As you may recall, I recently started a topic on building the perfect camera. I started listing my favorite “wish list” of features, and promised I would continue the list soon. Well, as luck would have it, that “thread” of content continues today! Here is the next set of five features I’d like to see:
- Megapixels – I really don’t make huge prints…16×20 is my usual upper limit, and if I need to go higher, post production tools can usually handle a notch or two higher. So, for my purposes, I really wouldn’t want more than 15 MP. Call me crazy, but I’d rather see larger pixels that blend nicer than smaller ones that produce more noise.
- Video – Yeah, it’s a staple in the P&S category and slowly creeping into the SLR ranks, so I may as well add it in here. But let’s not get all lame and only throw in low end video quality…and if you think I’ll settle for the HD-like caliber of 720p, you’d be mistaken. No, make it the full HD 1080p! It’s already arrived, so also being realistic! 🙂
- Frame Rate – SLR’s ar ranging anywhere from 3 to as many as 18 fps. I am not trying to capture a speeding bullet, nor am I a sports shooter for the NFL, but a frame rate on the order of 6-10 fps (raw) would be ideal. Since I am only asking for a Megapixel count of roughly 15, it’s not like the sensor would be hard pressed, so again, very realistic here, right?
- HDMI support – The Canon 1D Mark IV has it, so it clearly will become a staple of at least the higher end model SLR’s if it isn’t already, so I’d better have it here. Besides, the ability to directly display movies and photos directly on your HD TV would be super cool!
- Internal wireless and Bluetooth – the EyeFi card is a neat technology, but really? Think of the space a wireless card takes up these days and there is easily room inside an SLR body for that. Let me push my jpgs from shoots directly to the web for sharing. As for the Bluetooth, imagine being able to shoot and have your images pushed directly to a hard drive of 500GB sitting in your back pocket? Awesome!
Forget the first five features? Stop back here to give those a read and share your comments there. Or, if you haven’t commented yet (or even if you have and there’s more you’d like to share) be sure to chime in with your own thoughts and feature requests for the ideal camera! There’s more to come, but I promise, we’re almost done, so be sure to stop back some time soon for yet another 5 features in the DREAM CAMERA! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow! Any features you’ve thought of that I am still missing? Care to share? Don’t forget to sound off in the comments!
I’d also like to take a moment and thank those of you who have been perusing the archives of the blog. Enough people have commented that the “49 Tips Cheat Sheet” I posted back in 2009 was missing that I decided to re-publish on request. It’s available in the store tab here for a “Dollar Download”. (Most attachments get deleted after being in the archives for 30 days, so here’s your chance to get a very handy guide for about 2 cents per tip!)
Last, but not least, a reminder that we’re starting to wrap up March as the halfway point has officially passed, so be sure to get your photos up in the Flickr contest thread for a chance to win a Cheetah Quickstand. Details here.
1 comment for “Building the Perfect Camera, Pt. 2”