Opinion of D3400

[clovishound]

Since this has derailed into a trip down photography's memory lane (probably more fun than talking about one of the new, all electronic gadgets), here's a stock photo of the 3.5f just like the one I got from my Dad.



It is a beautifully engineered and manufactured camera. Almost makes me want to order some film, chemicals and paper and take a couple of rolls of pictures with it. That's assuming it still works. I don't think the shutter has been cycled in a long, long time. There is something compelling about the old ways. I still can't wrap my mind around putting a couple thousand high quality photos on a card not much bigger than a postage stamp.

[dave77]

. I still can't wrap my mind around putting a couple thousand high quality photos on a card not much bigger than a postage stamp.

I remember taking some non-professional wedding photos for friends and would shoot less than 10 rolls of 36 exposures. Recently shot some with a couple of other non-pros at a friends wedding and I shot at least 500 stills and a couple hours of video. I've heard that pros will shoot 1000's of photos at a wedding.

You did have to take more time to make sure you got decent shots with film.

I could probably fit at least 10,000 lg. high quality jpegs on the SD cards I have although I generally back them up to a couple of hard drives when they have less than a hundred.

[clovishound]

You had to be even more careful when taking pictures with the Rollei. The 120 rolls only had 12 exposures. I toyed with the idea of a view camera at one point. Talk about having to set everything up with care prior to hitting the shutter button.

[daytime dave]

I'd say get her the D3400 if it's a good deal on the combo package. Right after Christmas, a better camera will be available. Encourage her. Good luck.

[clovishound]

The package is going to be on sale for $500. That includes the body, the two lenses, a 32 gig card, and a camera bag. Seems like a good deal to me. I think she might like the bluetooth feature, she has a tablet and it might be cool to be able to immediately transfer a couple of pics to the tablet and view them in a larger format than the small LCD screen on the camera.

[daytime dave]

It sounds like a good deal. My DSLR doesn't Bluetooth. That might be a nice feature.

[dave77]

That's a good deal, I was at Costco yesterday and they had pretty much the same bundle for $599. My 70D has WiFi, must be similar to the bluetooth, I can set it up to send pictures as I'm taking them to my tablet (or a laptop).

[clovishound]

Just got a flyer from the NEX. They have it on sale Fri for the same price as Best Buy, minus sales tax. Now I need to decide whether it's worth $40 to try and fight the traffic over there before work Friday afternoon.

[clovishound]

Well, the deed is done. I decided to try and drop by the local Best Buy this evening. I didn't relish the idea of fighting the traffic tomorrow. I got the only one they had at my local BB. I was gone from the house about 30 minutes. Hopefully she will be happy with it. I'll try and remember to post her reaction and maybe some pics.

[daytime dave]

I'm glad you got it. I too hope she likes it.