Dish Farm

October 23, 2008
Tags: Bank of America Tower, industrial, satellite dish

For nearly one fifth of my life I have used a Canon Digital Rebel, purchased in September of 2003 for $999. It was the first digital SLR ever offered for under $1000, and though I had no prior plans to buy a DSLR, I was immediately drawn to it. When I originally purchased it to replace my 3-megapixel Canon G1 (a point-and-shoot), I remember thinking that 6 megapixels was a huge number. I looked forward to buying good lenses that would outlast the camera to which they were attached, and eventually I bought the beautiful Canon 70-200 f/2.8, which has proved its worth many times over.

The Rebel has been reliable and effective, and while 6 megapixels is small by today's standards, the quality of the sensor and its internal processing has kept up with any modern camera, so I've never felt that a captured image was lacking due to either of those elements. Megapixels are useless if they're attached to low-quality optics, yield bad color reproduction, or are negated by visual noise.

Since then, the Rebel has been succeeded by four newer models, each of which provided a boost in features and megapixels. I've yearned for other cameras in that time, paying the closest attention to the 10D line, and as each new model came out I felt increasingly compelled to consider it as a replacement for my aging Rebel. About the time the Canon 40D came out, I had been playing with a friend's Nikon and admiring its gorgeous VGA LCD display, which Canon had not yet matched on any camera, even with the new 40D. Thus I waited: I told myself that Canon would have to wise up, and the 50D (or whatever came out after the 40D) would certainly have such a display. I committed to waiting until that happened.

The 40D lasted 5 quarters, the shortest lifespan of a 10D-series camera, before the 50D was announced as its replacement. Sure enough, Canon had endowed it with a new high-resolution LCD display and several other improvements, so my decision was practically made for me. Though Canon's new 5D Mark II tempted me for a while, it cost nearly double the price of the 50D, so I went with what I could afford.

Today's photo is taken with my brand new 50D!