A couple of months ago I purchased a Nikon Coolpix 5000. You can read my review of it under "imaging". Some people might ask me, why not stick to a film camera? The luddite in me, can understand why so many people still use film. For 700 pounds, my Nikon camera has a 5 megapixel resolution, and has most of the features associated with SLRs. For exactly the same price, I could have bought a high end Canon film SLR, with more shooting modes than there are days in the year, not too mention a fantastically crafted lens. Undoubtedly, the quality of the film SLR's would be better than my Nikon digital. It is generally estimated that the average quality of prints from a film camera are equivalent to 10 megapixel digital cameras (and this figure can be even more depending on the quality of the optics). However, the prints from the Nikon are pretty good, and I challenge anyone to tell the difference between an A4 Nikon print, and an A4 film print (from a slide scanner)!

However, I cannot help but feeling that the arguments for digital are lost simply because of this one point. Sure, when digitals were averaging 1 megapixel, the difference between film was huge. These days with 5 megapixels, you can easily produce A4 (or even A3) prints that are very similar to film prints. Indeed with the latest digital SLRs, the differences are being blurred even more.

The top end >10 megapixel digital SLRs, like the Canon EOS-1Ds are amazing devices, matching film for quality (and without film grain!), but are incredibly pricey (and still bulky). I saw the EOS-1Ds advertised for 6000 pounds!

However, 6 megapixel digital SLRs like the Nikon D100 and Canon D60, are slowly bringing down the price of digital SLRs to under 2000 pounds. For most people the quality of these cameras is more than enough. These 6 megapixels are still expensive, but 5 years ago, worse quality digital SLR cameras cost 5000 pounds! I expect within a year (or more likely two) we shall see the price decreasing to under 1250 pounds. The great thing with digital SLRs, is that they use the same lenses as ordinary SLRs, so for example Canon film SLR lenses can be used with the Canon D60. It would indeed be wishful thinking, to believe that Canon and Nikon lenses settled on a common lens type that fitted both their cameras!

The great thing with digital is you can instantly preview your images. This is a great tool for the budding photographer (or even more experienced ones) to check that they have chosen the right settings and the shots are correctly exposed. Also you can take as many photos as you want without worrying about wasting film or having to print every photo from a roll of film (no matter how awful some are).

Gone are the problems associated with digital cameras and their LCD screens. Digital SLRs have optical viewfinders, so photographers just use their LCDs to preview photos.

With compact digitals, screens have become more power efficient, and batteries more effective, ensuring that it is possible to use a digital camera for several days of shooting (if you are careful with using the LCD).

So it's up to you to take the plunge and go for a digital camera, or stick to film. If you do try a digital camera, you will find you cannot go back to film! Both film and digital have their uses. However, as digital cameras become better and better, the argument will become much more biased towards digital. Think back a couple of decades, the camera of choice was medium format. These offered fantastic quality negatives. However, along came 35mm film SLRs that offered more convenience. Today, medium format cameras are mainly used only when the highest quality pictures are desired. In the same way I believe that digital cameras are going to take over from 35mm film.. but not entirely. There will always be a place for film.

You can view some of the photos I have taken with the Nikon Coolpix 5000 at http://www.saeedamen.com - the pictures are compressed versions.