[Recovered Thread: 101752]

[howards]

My Nikon 995 has a developed a small problem (won't respond to the remote control anymore, but otherwise works fine).

Instead of getting it fixed, I thought I'd see about spending a little more and getting a current generation camera with more resolution.

I went to several camera stores and looked at all sorts of camera brands. Mostly I was looking at $500 and up cameras, so I wasn't bottom fishing.

I was blown away that I could not find a single camera out there that could replace what I can do with my 995. I shoot a lot of macro photographs (pictures of coins, even pictures of pieces of coins like just the date). My 995 will hold focus in macro mode through the entire range of its zoom, so I can photo a whole coin and then zoom in on the part I want. Every camera out there that I looked at only focuses in the extreme wide end of the zoom range in macro mode, and would not allow me to zoom in and out like I do with the Nikon.

Additionally, very few of the current generation cameras offer a remote control.

Rant: Why is it that my 5-year-old-plus camera is more capable than anything out there now????

It seems that if I want to replace the 995 I'm getting pushed into a digital SLR. I looked at those too, and didn't see any SLR macro lenses with zoom, so I'd have to be swapping lenses in and out instead of zooming like I do with the Nikon.

Anybody have any brilliant ideas for me?