Leaps and bounds in digital

Kids who have never known anything else are blasé about it, but middle-aged fellas like meself are continually amazed at the sheer rapidity of technological progress. And this is in all areas, but obviously the more digital and less physical areas go the fastest.

In the area of enthusiast and professional digital photography, it's a new revolution every two years. In the late nineties, the only really good digital cameras where some huge and expensive ones like the Kodak DCS 620. Really big, and $15,000 each. And yet Kodak DCS 620 only had two megapixels.

Then in 1999, a revolution came, in the form of Nikon D1. It was half the price of the Kodak, and yet had slightly more pixels, 2.7MP. It was a huge hit for professionals. The image quality was not up to 35mm standards though. And it was pretty bulky, and still not within range of many amateurs.

About a year later, next revolution: Canon D30. A bit more resolution, 3MP. But much smaller and cheaper, "only" about $4,000. A huge hit. But it should be noted that the body was pretty much only amateur quality.

Next rev: Canon D60 and Nikon D100, around the year 2002. They were even cheaper than the D30, and had twice the resolution, 6MP! I remember that Laurie Jeffery was quite upset that my D100 was sharper than his expensive "old" D1.

And on it goes: Nikon D200, 2005: This upped the image resolution, in my opinion, into the super-35mm area, 10MP (and for every step the quality per pixel also got better), and upped the speed and mechanical quality of the body into semi-professional range. Many, many professionals use this body. Not to forget, it was yet a bit cheaper than the foregoing models. Around $2,000.

And now, the Nikon D300. Faster, tougher, better in all ways. This one can only be seen as a fully professional camera. And yet it is a few hundred cheaper yet than the predecessor.

A few years ago you paid a big premium for the speed and flexibility of digital cameras, and you had to look at the savings in film and processing to justify it. Not any more. With the Nikon D300 I am actually quite amazed at the sheer amount of technology they have stuffed into the camera for the price.

I honestly did not think the price gap between film cameras and digital cameras would ever be closed, because of all the extra technology there has to be in a digital one. But the gap has been closed, and maybe even a bit overlapped, it feels to me. And so soon too.