[font color=\'#000000\']Stef -
I don't like to carry much gear with me when I'm hiking or traveling either. I use just the one lens that comes with the D70 kit, which has an effective 35mm-equivalent focal length range of about 27-105mm, which is plenty enough for me (except for wildlife shots). I don't know how its total weight compares with the digicams (you can always look that up at dpreview or wherever), but it fits in one small purse-sized camera bag. I'm a small person, but I have no problem carrying it around with me everywhere all day.
If you have a good camera store in your area, I'd recommend that you ask to look at and pick up one of the digicams you're considering along with a D70 or Canon Digital Rebel for comparison, and actually feel the difference in size & weight.
Lisa[/font]
[font color=\'#000000\']Hey Lisa,
After quite some consideration I have come to almost exactely the same conclusions as you.
I'm looking to buy a DSLR and a 27-105 will do just fine (in the beginning). I also don't want to compromise to much in quality by buying a 28-200 mm lens (sigma).
I've had the opportunity to try a Nikon D70 for about an hour. Boy, is that an amazing piece of equipment. I felt like a kid who just had a box of candy for his birthday. Lightning fast, good grip, easy handling, good quality.
The only thing though : the D70 seems to take pictures that are quite cold, poorly saturated and a tad underexposed.
I like the sample images for the eos 300d a lot better.
This is the only thing I deplore and what could keep me from buying it. So, I wonder whether the experienced photographer
that you are, could give me some pointers regarding how to deal with that in a professional way.
This is what I tried : I set the custom postprocessing to saturation + 1, contrast + 1 and sharpening +1 and used that throughout. I also often used some exposure compensation.
I always used a manual set white balance preset (never auto).
That does improve the jpgs but I can imagine there are better ways.
Also I don't think that will fix the problem when I'm shooting RAW. I can imagine that I should tweak every single picture in photoshop ( a lot of work). And can I überhaupt get the same warmth then as the - out of the box - pictures of the eos 300d.
Thanks in advance
Stefan
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