Long time tourist, now doing day trips only. My Pentax MX film camera is still fine, but want to go digital to rid my self of the expense of buying and processing film. What camera will shoot like a simple 35mm film slr? Don't want tons of functions, just functionality that has super simple controls and good picture quality. So far I have found nothing as simple as my film camera that takes quality photos. Suggestions requested. Thanks.
1. Cost of processing is often offset by the time and disk space required to store, cuyll, tweak, print, or email digital images. You'll see that where you once shot two rols of 36-exp film, you will shoot 500 digitals.
2. There are mroe than 100 simple digital SLRs and another 50 or so truly complex DSLRs. I doubt you will find one that will accept your Pentax lenses so you're starting from scratch. Personally, I'd never think of traveling with my DSLRs unless I was being paid; too heavy, too much money tied up.
3. Functionality? You mean independent aperture and shutter speed adjustment and over-ridable automatic metering as well as manual focusing? Not on simple digital cameras. You step through menus to make changes in the control systems.
4. Picture quality is a weird topic. I maintain that 95% of your biking images will be emailed as very tiny jpg. The few shots you print larger than 6x4 probably are not worth the super-sized sensors being marketed these days. A 12mp camera shoots an image that is four orders of magnitude larger than you need.
5. People tend to buy huge storage cards that will hold thousands of images; they never change film, so to speak. If they lose the camera, everything's gone. Suggest you consider smaller cards or a digital downloader.
6. Remember you will want a good protective case and a wrist strap.
7. Don't buy a bike camera you can't afford to lose or have destroyed.
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