Photography is a pursuit that I have enjoyed since I was a school kid. Remember when cameras didn't need batteries and you could only snap thirty six or so shots before a re-load? Well that's the tech that I cut my teeth on.

 I saw my first digital camera back in 1990 when a very early Sony Mavica was brought in to show the students at the photography college I attended.

 It was not much smaller than the SLRs we were carting around every day. It looked kind of... slapped together. It looked like an ungraceful box of wires with holes cut in the places that lenses and buttons needed to go. It had a big door on the back for the 3.5 inch floppy disk that it used as media.

It took pictures that you wouldn't tolerate on a web-cam today and, if I remember correctly, you could get around ten or so shots to a disk. 

 We had a lively discussion in class about this incredible piece of tech...

 Was this the future? Would such devices ever rival film in resolution and image quality? Would any of us here ever be able to afford one? 

 The lecturer felt that film would always be the choice of the professional. He was pretty convinced that the image quality of digital would never cut the mustard in the real world. Besides, even if the resolution did improve, you would need bags of floppys just to do a simple shoot! How was that an advantage over film?

 I, like most photographers, am an unashamed tech junky. The contraption was of instant appeal to me but, as the lecturer rightly pointed out, it just wasn't a camera that we could use for what we were being trained to do. Yet...

 Being young and not heavily invested in the current technology, I logged that demonstration as a significant sign of things to come. I knew about Moores Law. This was going to change things for sure! I resolved to keep a close eye on developments, (no pun intended). 

 It was quite some time before we started to hear the term "Megapixel".  

A Million pixels! Wow!

 I told myself that it shouldn't be long until a couple of these megapixels will be crammed into an imaging chip. If I had the cash at the time, that would be my entry point. The heady heights of 2 Megapixels!

 My first digital camera was a Nikon 2500. What an awesome piece of gear! I still have it. The macro that thing can do still impresses me.

 Next was a Canon A620. Again, a brilliant little camera with great features and the ability to shoot stunning close up images. It fits in a proper underwater housing as well, which reignited my dreams of shooting whilst diving, cruelly dashed when my Nikonos IVa flooded. It is still my underwater rig to this day.

  The Sony F828 was an exciting addition to my kit. Powerful, capable, ahead of the tech curve and frieky good looking.
 However, like everything Sony, built like shit and full of bugs.

 Sony are early adopters of interesting new technology, which is good and it gets you in. They don't want you holding on to your gear for years though and so, I suspect, they design it to fail. It's the only rational explanation I can come up with for the reliability and the timing of malfunction I've observed. Full of fluff and good marketing with no love for longevity. That's Sony through and through in my experience. 

 I did some very satisfying photography with the Sony though, and it still works after a bit of TLC and the extensive cannibalizing of another F828. I've given it to my niece who is turning out some good images with it. She will be a fine shooter if she keeps it up. 

 Digital SLR was something I'd put off for a long time. Much of the stuff I do is made easier with the facility of a twistable, live-viewing LCD.

 Pro level film SLRs have prisms which can be removed. This allows you to shoot from the hip or to shoot in the sort of contorted possitions that macro shots often require. 

 Until recently, digital SLRs did not afford the photographer this important capability. I know that there were some technical challenges to providing this option but it struck me as a major drawback and one for which I would await resolution before taking that next step.

 The Canon 40D. My current rig. Ironically, I hardly ever use the live view function now.

I do miss the convenience of the smaller machines but the pros far outweigh the cons. These Canon folk know how to make a friekin awesome camera. They are pretty ordinary at customer service and some reps I've met have been cocky and arrogant but they have made some really beautiful camera systems. 

 At last, the neigh-saying of my old hack school lecturer has been debunked. Digital has come of age and is, for most purposes, every bit as good as film and in many ways, better. 

 Please enjoy the fruits of my journey.