I am planning a World tour towards the end of the year.

In the past, I had a minolta 7xi. I bought two years ago a Fuji MX700. So I know a bit of both Worlds. Today, some fairly fancy stuff is coming out...but still hesitate in between a Nikon Coolpix990 with extra lenses (wide angle and tele) or going for a Nikon F100. Quality wise, what can I expect from this digital choice compared to the "old" solution?

-- Paul Benoit (benoit@stavanger.anadrill.slb.com), April 22, 2000

Answers

What do you want to do. How large do you want your enlargements? How fast do you want your images? These are the questions you need to answer in order to determine what to buy. Film and a scanner will give you at least an order of magnitude more information than a digital camera unless you spend $20,000 or more for a high end canon or leaf back for a medium format camera. Even then your image will be about 60% of the image size from a scan from a canoscan 2710 or nikon coolscan with less bit depth. If you need an image immediately, or do not need to enlarge anything greater than 8X10 ever, then go for a digital camera. If you want to do more, then you will need to use film.

-- Jonathan Ratzlaff (jonathanr@clrtech.bc.ca), April 22, 2000.

I can't tell you much about digital. I just purchased a 990 for my first plunge into digital. However, I have been traveling and shooting Nikons for about 30 years and I just added an F100 to my F5 and 7 lens last year. First, the F100 is superb. It takes all the best technology from the F5 and puts it into a much lighter, smaller body that operates beautifully. If you are a serious photographer I don't believe that a prosumer point-and-shoot like the 990 can equal the quality and versatility of a top end film machine like the F100 wiht a complement of lens. It's sort of an unfair comparison because the film option has much more inherent capability. Hope these thoughts help. Good travels!

-- Michael Chayes (ChayesM@aol.com), April 28, 2000.