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Choosing a DSLR
Wezoin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm looking for a cheap (and I mean that relatively) DSLR. Above all else I'm looking for good picture quality. I don't care how heavy or bulky it is.
I've been looking at:
Canon XS - on sale at Staples for $470ish
Olympus 520 - on sale at Futureshop for $480ish
Sony whatever the lowest model Alpha DSLR is - $550 at SonyStyle store.
Which would you guys recommend? I need an included lens and can't really afford much more than $500 ($550 really is pushing it) and I'm talking Canadian dollars too.
I'm also open to other suggestions.
I've been looking at:
Canon XS - on sale at Staples for $470ish
Olympus 520 - on sale at Futureshop for $480ish
Sony whatever the lowest model Alpha DSLR is - $550 at SonyStyle store.
Which would you guys recommend? I need an included lens and can't really afford much more than $500 ($550 really is pushing it) and I'm talking Canadian dollars too.
I'm also open to other suggestions.
Wezoin on
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Pentax would probably be the best bang for your buck new, their bodies are really underrated.
If your going to buy used avoid grey market scams.
I personally bought a Nikon body and [URL=]this[/URL] 50 mm lens to start out as it is only $100USD and a really good lens.
personally i would go for a slightly cheaper body and put your money towars lenses.
i currently shoot with a nikon d70 woth the 50mm f1.8D whch is probably the lense RS linked.
one thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the newer nikon bodies don't have autofocus motors in the body which means you can't autofocus a lot of the older lenses llike that 50mm without spending extra for the SMF lens
Uh, that is definitely a link to porn...
this is the lens i have, not the asian porn version
50mm 1.8fd
Brands: Grab a Canon or a Nikon if you don't know what you want to do with your camera system. If you never want to get into birding, sports or low light shooting, consider a Pentax. Fuji is good if you want a really small body (in the E-420). Otherwise, they're expensive and have itty-bitty sensors. Sony seems to be popular, but I've never shot with one and, for the price, there seem to be better options in Canon or Nikon (which have a much fuller lens selection).
Specific Suggestions: Pick up a Canon X__ or a Nikon D50/D70/D80. Do not buy a Nikon D40/D60, as they do not have autofocus motors and so cannot use most lenses with AF. The Pentax K10D, K200D or K20D are all superb cameras and should be in your price range.
But the bodies don't really matter. Lenses are much more important than the body.
On your budget, spent $300 on a body and $200 on lenses. Buy a 50mm f/1.8 (or, in the case of Pentax, an FA 50mm f/1.4) and keep the kit lens if it gets thrown in (or can be bought for less than $100) - they are serviceable wide angles until you have the cash to pick up something nicer.
Only problem is there really aren't any new DSLRs available near me for $300. $470 is about the cheapest I see them. I'm in London, Ontario.
Here is a link to the Sony CA press release
Anyone see any issues with this one? Olympus E-520
I don't need the *best* picture quality in the world, but I would like something a bit better than your average point and shoot.
This is why used is good. In Ontario, Henry's runs a decent used program and Harry's Pro Shop has nice cameras for good prices every now and then too. If you do buy used, be sure to use Photoprice.ca to compare prices on the camera you're buying. Futureshop very rarely has decent deals on cameras and SonyStore is about 40% more than buying the camera from one of their distributors.
Crappy high ISO performance and very expensive (though very good) glass. Difficult to get wide-angle lenses because the tiny sensor means huge crop factor (2x, as compared to 1.6x on APS-C sensors found in most consumer DSLRs).
That E-520 deal isn't great. The E-520 is actually discontinued, so buying it new is difficult - but back when they were still being made, Vistek was selling the last of their stock at $380.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Canon EOS XTI
Has the XTI changed since it was released at all? It seems like a good deal since wherever I see it new its around $750 - $800, but I can't be sure.
EDIT: Nevermind its the XSI I've been seeing at that price. I guess the XTI is an old model.
A bit on camera shutters and used cameras: The trouble with non 1D-series Canon DSLRs is that there's no way to check how many actuations have been put on the shutter. You can get estimates from the file numbering system, but there are all sorts of ways this can be reset. The mechanical shutters in SLRs are very intricate little mechanisms, and every shutter has a limited lifespan before it dies. In a 1D series, the average shutter life is around 200k actuations. In an XTi, the anecdotal average shutter is about 100k actuations. Unfortunately, the only way to judge this on non 1D cameras is indirectly, by examining general wear and tear on the body. The more wear, particularly near the shutter button, the more likely the body has lots and lots of actuations on it and so less life left in the shutter. Shutters can be replaced, but it's generally prohibitively expensive on lower end bodies (a $600 shutter replacement becomes a much more reasonable proposition on a $5k 1DMkIII).
On a 1D-series, yes, shutter count is written into EXIF data. On anything not 1D, nope. It's silly and drives me mad on a regular basis.
to the OP. honestly unless you are buying it from a pro (which i would avoid) you probably will never go through teh life of a dslr sensor/shutter. take a look at camera strap holders for high wear, if they are rubbed up really good, the camera has seen some use.
That's not really the case, at all. Shutters explode all the time. A particularly trigger happy parent can blow through a thousand actuations in a single sports game (three frame burst every 21 seconds over a two hour game=1028 actuations). You also have to consider that the camera may have been owned by another person prior to the one you're buying from, and you have no way to confirm who that person was - sure, it's owned by an old man who shoots nothing but flowers now, but perhaps he bought his 40D from a pro sports shooter who put 50k actuations a week on the body for three months before selling it.
And the average number is just that, the average. I know one particularly unlucky wedding photog who's gone through three sub-100k 1DsMkIIs after having their shutters all fail within the first week of him getting them. That's an outrageously unlikely thing to happen, but it does. Physical trauma to the body can also decrease shutter life, which is why looking for particularly nasty marks on the body is important.
tl;dr Shutter failure is a very real possibility and should be very much on the front of your mind when buying a used camera.
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/829638
I know the OP is looking for a body, but as mentioned in other posts, where does one look for lenses? And is there a straightforward way to know what lenses will work with which bodies, or do you have to stick to brands?
I've looked into DSLRs before because it's easy to be disappointed in the picture quality of a point/shoot camera, but I quickly became lost when I hit the "you need to buy lenses and you should expect to spend thousands of dollars on your hobby" aspect of user forums. I understand that photography is a serious hobby, but I also understand that most newbies simply won't understand a lot of the nuances because they've never had to seriously look at them before.
tl;dr: where do relative newbies even find reasonably-priced lenses, and how do they know what to look for?
the 50mm nikon lense is one of their best despite the 100 dollar price tag.
speaking purely froma nikon user, they have a lot of good older lenses that you can find for steals on teh used market.
i usually peruse them and them and then check reviews on either kenrockwell.com or fredmiranda.com
honestly you can probabkly get by with one or two lenses if you are not looking for too much of a niche.
i usually look for new (to me) lenses on craigslist, fredmiranda, adorama, keh etc.
as far as compatability, all nikon bodies can pretty much mount any nikon lenses, though some of the older manual focus lenses don't have full capabilities (metering AF) there are third party lenses that are good but don't hold value as well as the brand name.
i am sure Dark Moon will disagree with me but you can budget well and still have a useable kit for cheap.
The D80 and D90 also have the built-in motor.
When you get into DSLR shooting, it's hard to stick to a budget (at least, it was/is for me). I started with the D90 and the kit 18-105 (which is a great lens, albeit easy to break w/ the plastic mount). I've since broken that glass, but have picked up 5 others. All in the span of about a year. It truly is an addiction. I'd recommend (as others have) to look to something with a lot of good availability in glass (like a Nikon). Also, what helps is deciding what you want to shoot. Gonna get into Flash/Portrait photography? Macro? Landscapes? Sports? (That last category generally requires the biggest budget)
I don't believe it - I'm on my THIRD PS3, and my FIRST XBOX360. What the heck?
not always
my friend wrote this blog up. while it is mainly orientated towards whitewater kayaking, it can be applied to otehr sports, though if you need telephoto the price will go up.
linky
When looking for lenses you just need to make sure the "mount" is copmatible with your body. Any camera review site should list whihc mounts are compatible.
Kit lenses are compromises. They need to be cheap, but give a usable range (slightly wide to 2-3x). I don't think there's anything wrong with picking up a camera with a kit lens as after a few months of shooting you're going to be better informed on what kind of glass you need (if you need any at all, if it's for social shooting it may be sufficient). You could certainly jump in with fast primes at 14, 28, 50, 85 and 135, but then you've just blown like $2000 on lenses you may or may not use with any frequency; I chose that route and although I have good glass I only use my 50 and my 35 with any regularity, so if I had it to do over again I'd have done things differently.
That said, you can probably pick up a Tamron/Promaster lens that overlaps the range of a kit lens that will give you a couple extra stops (and will be correspondingly bigger/heavier) for maybe $250-350.
Or you can buy just a body and find a fast prime that gets you normal perspective and just figure out how to shoot that way (getting closer/further away from your subject - zooming with your feet, or changing the plane or angle of the shot is going to help you make better pictures anyways).
if you bought a new d40/d3000/d5000 now you get the 18-55 VR and/or maybe the 55-200 VR depending on where you buy. both are good lenses with decent light. if you were to buy one not in the kit they are less than 200 each. non-vr brings the price down to about 100=120
Yep, and the D90 kit is 18-105 VR, which actually is a very nice lens. I was kinda mad when I broke mine. I've since changed to a nicer 16-85 w/ metal mount for a nice, versatile lens, but I also carry the 70-300 VRII, 60mm Micro, 35mm DX prime (f1.8), and I just added a Tokina 11-16 wide angle (non-fisheye).
I don't believe it - I'm on my THIRD PS3, and my FIRST XBOX360. What the heck?
You start buying expensive lenses once you start feeling the limitations of cheap glass and/or develop an interest in a particular type of photography that has major equipment requirements. Birding with less than a 300mm lens, for example, is really really tough. Shooting events without using flashes generally requires every lens you use be f/2.8 or faster.
But there's a silver lining to buying good gear: High quality lenses retain resale value to a much greater degree than cheap lenses. A lens that's $500 new will probably sell for $200 on the used market if you take great care of it but use it around for 5 years, whereas a lens that's $2000 new will probably sell for $1800 in 5 years (unless a new version of that lens comes out - but that's pretty rare for higher end lenses). If you know how to bargain and buy your high end lenses used, there's a decent chance you can resell whatever you buy for exactly what you paid for it.
Lens Compatibility:
Every Nikon camera except the D40, D60, D3000 and D5000 can mount any Nikon SLR lens ever and, if it's an autofocus lens, autofocus with it. The cameras above will only work with AF-S lenses that have an autofocus motor built into the lens itself. Don't buy a D40, D60, D3000 or D5000 unless you're willing to give up AF with lots and lots of lenses. Edit: mts reminded me: DX lenses are specific to the crop sensor bodies and should only be purchased if you never see yourself buying a full frame body or are okay with having to replace a whole bunch of lenses when you make the leap to FF. FX lenses fit on everything and create an image circle big enough to cover a 35mm frame.
Canon swapped their mounting system back in the day from FD to EF. FD lenses will not mount on EF bodies (all Canon DSLRs, some newer film bodies) and EF lenses will not mount on FD lenses (older film bodies). EF lenses cover the full image circle of a 35mm frame and can be used on all Canon DSLRs. EF-S lenses are smaller lenses that cover a smaller image circle and can only be used on 1.6x APS-C crop cameras (D30,D60,10D,20D,30D,40D,50D,300D,350D,400D,450D,1000D,500D). APS-H crop cameras (1D,1DMkII,1DMkIII,1DMkIV) and full frame cameras (1Ds,1DsMkII,1DsMkIII, 5D, 5DMkII) can only use EF lenses.
Pentax DSLRs are all APS-C and can mount every K mount lens ever made. Pentax film cameras, once they entered the K-mount era (after the Spotmatics, basically), can also mount every K mount ever with a but: The "DA" series is a digital only series of lenses that lack an aperture ring and produce a smaller image circle, so will display vignetting on film bodies. The "FA" series is an older series of full frame lenses, some of which are still in production, that will work properly on film bodies as well as digital. Older lens series than that (K,M,A,D-FA) are manual focus but will work on any Pentax film body.
Third party lenses (Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Voigtlander, Zeiss…) all have their own special designation for "only works on a APS-C camera" which is usually some form of "Optimized For Digital".
No one cares about Fuji or Sony.
to add to dark moon's post, while no one may care about Sony, they will mount minolta lenses but i have no idea how it works with older lense or any compatability issues.
with nikon lenses pay attention to the nomenclature. DX lenses are optimized for the crop-sensor. while fine for most of their bodies, if you ever want to upgrade to a full frame camera in the future, they don't do as well and you lose a lot of data since you are only using part of the sensor. conversely if you don't get a dx lens you can use them on any body with no loss of info. see that link i posted, all the acronymns are explained
Thanks for the help, I had no idea there was so much to know.