Thanks for starting this thread BigV, I love photography as a topic of discussion. I am not quite as bad as you with the sheer number of photos but give me time ... just checked and I am over 60k of digital photos ... hate to think of how many old print SLR pictures I have.

I had used picasa's simple upload tools in the past to push pictures to their website but never used the full up tool until it was mentioned here. Just pulled off a copy and it is really neat! I normally use ACDsee Photo Manager 12 and I do love that for viewing and doing minor adjustments to photos but the face recognition functionality in Picasa is something I have always wanted ... too many times the wife has said she needed a couple pictures of someone ... and I then faced the task of navigating through a maze of folders to find some.

On the f-stops discussion, I have not stepped up to a DSLR yet ... I take so many pictures purely because I have a simple point-n-shoot camera in my pocket with me quite often. A DLSR is not something you can easily carry around with you everywhere and often, such as in the rain or at the beach, it is not something you want to expose to the moisture or conditions anyway.

I just bought a new Olympus XZ-1 point-n-shoot purely on the basis of wanting a "better" f-stop range, specifically this camera has a f1.8 lower end so it gathers a LOT of light for a PnS. It also has a large sensor size for a PnS - 1/1.63" (7.89x5.81mm) ... this is tiny when compared to a DLSR but it is large for a PnS.

All that said, I will probably be buying a full up DSLR this year .... just because I can ... :)

DSLRs are the new dinosaur. They are a thing of the past, like horse drawn buggies, eight track tapes, independent bookstores, clean air and water, and your innocence.

All the cool kids are going EVIL Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens

http://laptopmemo.com/wp-content/upl...5/NEX-5_13.jpg


http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/10...insanely-cool/

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/...tch-your-dslr/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorl...le-lens_camera

Wow. outstanding footfootfoot, thank you thank you thank you.

This is me:

Not sure if you should thank or curse me.
Consider: I am still 100% behind this camera (which I own)

* Drooling consumer fetishism *

Re FFF's old friend ... probably the single most important thing on a camera is getting the shape of the glass lens absolutely right. That doesn't change over time. A good lens is a good lens.

There is a lot of discussion about the new mirrorless systems (like the Sony FFF posted above). I think the demise of the DSLR is a long way off still ... a full up DSLR will be the choice of pros for some time to come. At least the mirrorless systems are using a decent sensor since the sensor size is the other BIG thing to worry about (besides the lens ... good glass is vital). Can't get over how much like a toy they look like still though (the mirrorless systems).

A decent article on sensor sizes is at http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=Sensor_Sizes

True, there is a lot to be said about a viewfinder, especially in bright situations. Also holding the camera away at arm's length so you can see the view screen is not helpful or quick.

I'm not sure if my bias is growing up with and spending 40 years with a viewfinder system rather than a view screen system.

stranger things have come to pass, though. I'm not buying into EVIL myself.

I'm gonna go EVIL as soon as I can find one that fits all the other parameters I require.

In the meantime, I won't miss the viewfinder. There are parallax errors, and in my current camera, the viewfinder doesn't even reveal the whole "frame" that is captured. I'll agree that under some conditions it's difficult to see the lcd. That's true for the viewfinder too. For those conditions where the difficulty is excessive brightness I offer this idea:

http://www.lonestardigital.com/LCDviewer.htm

Range finders, and twin lens reflex have slight parallax errors, the better rangefinders correct for it as you change focus. The main reason behind an SLR is WYSIWYG. The same lens that views, takes.

You say that from your film bias.

Let me back up... you've forgotten more about photography that I will probably ever learn, buddy. I know that. But WYSIWYG is misleading. It is true that the same lens that sees, takes. But that's also true of the digital non-slrs lcd display. What's being displayed is what will be taken--or should/could. Still one set of lenses.

But back to the Seeing part of what I'm getting. My ability to see (not conceive, that's another thing) what I want to make through the viewfinder is much more limited than what I can see via the lcd. The size is one big factor. I can see much more detail in a three inch lcd than I can in a three-eighths inch viewfinder. There are also other shooting conditions, very dark and unusual-not-taken-from-my-face camera positions that render the viewfinder unusable.

I like the lcd, I sometimes use the viewfinder. I am, at the moment, headed down the digital path. With the exception of dslrs, the optical viewfinders will become less available, I believe. A slightly negative tradeoff that I'm happy to accept.

I feel positively antiquated. I'm still looking for a cool 28-135 FD lens to spruce up my Canon SLR collection. Sigh. I will forever be a film geek.

No you're making more out of it that what I meant. I'm just referring to parallax problems. The other issue is a personal taste concern.

film geeks are hot.:heart-on:

I have to admit I like the LCD for taking pictures ... even cameras with a viewfinder (getting harder and harder to find) I use the LCD. I agree you can see better detail on it than the vf ... and I also like being able to see outside the photo that I am about to take, that being what is happening beside the narrow view of the picture I am taking ... sometimes something off to one side, if added to the picture (or even replacing the current subject), results in a better picture.

I am in trouble already with the new Olympus ZX-1 I mentioned earlier ... there is a high speed photo option where you press and hold the shutter release and it takes pictures as fast as it can (it shuts off flash and drops you back to 2560x1920 pixels) ... I was out with my granddaughter yesterday and in just a little while wracked up 400 pictures ... will have to be ruthless with going through them and only keeping the best or I will have as many pictures as BigV shortly!

an update: I have reduced the number of unidentified faces to 11,495.