Buyer's Guide

What ZDNet UK's editors want for Christmas

ZDNet UK ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 16 Dec 2004

I've been a good lad this year, so I'm hoping Santa will reward me with two toys for Christmas. What I'm really after is the perfect digital darkroom, and personally I think that Canon makes some of the best digital photographic gear going. (I've also heard that they like journalists!)

Canon's EOS 10D is a high-spec digital SLR, which can snap away with very little delay -- something most digital cameras have trouble with. The EOS 10D can take photos with resolutions of up to 3,072 by 2,048 pixels, which is more than enough for any close-up wildlife photography I'll be doing come the spring, and can fire bursts of nine shots off at once. That's good for when your fellow hacks make fools of themselves at Christmas parties.

Online shops sell the camera for around £1,000 (check here), so Santa, wouldn't even have to leave his sleigh, let alone descend any chimneys. He wouldn't find any mince pies or sherry in my house anyway. Beer or nothing, mate.

Digital SLRs are still expensive, but they have come down in price significantly, and are well equipped to deal with anything I need to photograph, so switching over from my film-based EOS SLR shouldn't be a problem.

With all this winter weather coming, my darkroom in the loft is getting a bit chilly too, so what better way to develop photos than on my Apple PowerBook with a Canon PIXMA iP8500 inkjet printer? That should keep the chilblains at bay.

Canon's range of iP inkjets are all pretty good, but this one has the packs the eight-ink ChromaPlus photo system, which effectively means it produces a very high-quality print. Being Canon, it should also complement the EOS 10D I'm expecting, and it supports Mac OS X.

Although you get fewer photos out of the iP8500 (Canon says 210 pages at 5 percent coverage) than the iP6000d (430 pages), the overall quality and speed of the iP8500 are better. It can also print thumbnails onto CD-R and DVD media. The iP8500, which Canon markets as 'the photographer's printer' will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine…please?

Canon

Price
~£1,000 (inc. VAT; EOS 10D)
~£325 (inc. VAT; iP8500)