TekPicks

We are a Nikon shop for all of our high DSLR cameras and accessories, but if you are ready to put down the point and shoot model and graduate to a “Professional Grade” camera the choices can be pretty overwhelming. In our opinion, if you are spending less than $1,000 on your camera most brands will not produce a discernible difference in quality.

One factor to consider are the accessories. You can easily end up spending more on your add-on’s then the camera itself. That is one of the reason we like the Canon Speedlite 270EX Flash. It small, but packs plenty of power, has a wonderful range of motion including swivel and a recharge time of less than 4 seconds.

The best part is at about $150 the Canon Speedlite 270EX Flash is half the price of other comparable models. Plus as you get more comfortable and want to explore other options Canon has a whole family of EX flashes available suitable for just about any need.

I am not sure if it was eating too much lead paint as a kid or living under power lines all those years, but I cannot hold a camera steady to save my life.  Sure most new camera’s have some sort of image stabilization feature and there is always the old string and a washer trick, but that only works if you are holding the camera horizontally.  The Olympus E-520 is the first shooter to add vertical stabilization as well to help eliminate all those blurry pictures.  The E-520 also sports a 10 MP LIVE-MOS Sensor, HyperCrystal II LCD, automatic face detection and wireless flash capabilities.  The body starts at just under $600 making the E-520 a great option for a back-up or weekend camera for us power line kids.