Best starter DSLR?
mooshoepork
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Registered User regular
So! I want to take up photography as a hobby. I've always wanted to, but figured it was just a phase. I'm going to do it anyway though.
Where do I start? I figure I want to get a starter DSLR camera. A post I made in the photo thread suggested the Nikon D40 or the Canon EOS 400D.
What exactly should I be looking for? How many mega pixels/zoom and all that.
In terms of budget, I just want to see how much it will cost me. I don't really want to spend any more than $1000 AUS.
edit: Mad. There's a thread which is eerily similar to this one. It's pretty helpful, but more current suggestions are welcome
Where do I start? I figure I want to get a starter DSLR camera. A post I made in the photo thread suggested the Nikon D40 or the Canon EOS 400D.
What exactly should I be looking for? How many mega pixels/zoom and all that.
In terms of budget, I just want to see how much it will cost me. I don't really want to spend any more than $1000 AUS.
edit: Mad. There's a thread which is eerily similar to this one. It's pretty helpful, but more current suggestions are welcome
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the canon rebel xs
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10109189&catid=22553
depending on your budget and how much you are willing to spend on lenses in the future. someone with a nikon should correct me if i'm wrong.
i would recommend looking at lenses and reviews for the types of lenses you'd like to buy then compare prices. macro, telephoto or wide angle (landscape) type photos.
i personally have a canon rebel xt and i like it, but i also considered a nikon when i bought my camera. i went with canon because two friends of mine also had canon slrs and my friend said i could try his lenses which was a bonus.
A scenario to consider: Say you want to shoot really, really badly want to eventually be a birder, because you absolutely love staring at a 20g bag of feathers from 2km away for 5 goddamn hours until it finally turns around so you can capture three frames of it. To do this Seriously, you'll want a high MP count APS-C sensor body with fast AF and really long glass - minimum of 300mm, ideally with 400 and 500mm options and good 1.7x and 2x teleconverter options that let you keep AF. The former body can be found in Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fuji body lineups, but the latter lenses and associated gobbledegook are only found in their entirety and within a reasonable budget under Canon and Nikon. So, as I said, look at lenses first.
You have two tiers of DSLR manufacturers: Canon/Nikon and Everybody Else (Pentax, Sony, Fuji, Other Guys). If you go with Canon or Nikon, it's rather difficult to lose. They have a pretty solid selection of bodies, a clear upgrade path if your future plans will require a high speed sports body or a full frame portrait body or anything in between, and a massive array of lenses. The only place you can miss with them is with their entry-level offerings, which I feel are lacking in certain respects relative to the alternatives available from other manufacturers.
First up, the Nikon D40/D40x/D60. Do not buy. In a fit of poorly planned cost-cutting, Nikon did not include an in-body AF motor in these cameras, rendering them unable to focus with any but a select few, primarily zoom, AF-S lenses. All their AF line, including pretty much all of their prime lenses, will not autofocus on these bodies. Some fans of these bodies will suggest that you can just manually focus the incompatible lenses. They will then go on to tout all MF as superior to "AF or MF at your discretion." This is, of course, hogwash being spouted by folks trying to justify their own purchases of inferior goods. MF is great in some situations, but blows massive donkeys if you're interested in photographing moving subjects, which many people seem to be fond of. Of course if a D40 falls from the sky you can still take plenty of wonderful photographs with it - I'm just saying that, for the money, it's not ideal. If you want to go Nikon, get an old used D50 or D70 or spring for a new D80/D90 - go as high as your budget allows. Just be sure to leave ample room for lenses, as you'll ideally want to spend roughly equal amounts on the body and a starting set of lenses (kit zoom, 50mm fast prime, something wide or something long depending on what you're into).
Canon has some pretty tasty beginner offerings at the moment. Their XT/XTi/XSi line is a great value for the money and should be seriously considered, especially if your budget only allows a D40 in the competing Nikon lineup. They have a vastly inferior flash system to Nikon, though, so if you're the strobist type give the D80 another look. My only qualm that stands true for both Canon and Nikon is that their beginner bodies feel like tiny toys made of plastic and glue. They're extremely light, made primarily of plastic and offer nothing in regards to weather sealing.
Which brings me to my third brand, Pentax, or more specifically, their beginner offering in the form of the K200D. This camera is a K10D with one finger-wheel missing, and as I've been shooting with a K10D for about a year I feel fairly confident in touting some of its benefits over the competition (which I've also shot with). One word to describe this body: Solid. It's significantly heavier than the XSi and the D40 and fits my larger hands far better than either of the alternatives. It's got a stainless steel chassis and boasts full weather and dust sealing. I feel confident in saying that I could kill several men with this camera before I'd even begin to worry about its well being, and then only due to all the congealed blood on the front element of the mounted lens. It's also got in-body image stabilization and supports every lens Pentax made from the 1970s onward. Canon and Nikon both use in-lens stabilization, which is arguably better (~0.5-1 f-stop gain) but significantly more expensive as every lens you buy needs to have the IS mechanism built into it. Now, if you want to shoot sports you can go ahead and go back to Canon or Nikon, as Pentax lacks affordable long glass and isn't known for particularly fast AF speed or high FPS. If you want to do anything else, give the K200D a try. I do primarily landscapes and controlled portraits, and I couldn't be happier with my purchase. I have a huge selection of cheap, old glass that's wonderfully well built and offers image stabilization despite its age, and lots of high quality new stuff if I can spend a bit more.
Sony has some decent offerings but a poorly fleshed out lens lineup as it stands. I'd keep an eye on them, but would give their lenses a good hard look (for both available focal lengths and their astronomical prices) before buying into their system.
Fuji is great if you want a tiny DSLR like their E-420. The thing can almost fit in your pocket. However, everything costs a lot, they can't make super-wide-angle lenses for 4/3rd sensors like on the Fujis, and the tiny sensors have noise problems. I would never buy a non-E420 Fuji, but some people do, so I suppose they must offer some benefit I'm just not seeing.
Before you buy a body, go to a camera store and try it out. Hold it in your hand, see how it feels. If you buy a body that you don't like the feel of, you'll be less likely to want to shoot with it, and that is Bad. A comfortable body is extremely important and should be one of your primary considerations behind available lenses and cost (assuming cost is an issue).
Whatever you do, DPReview.com is a great resource for camera body reviews and Photozone is a great source for lens reviews.
Edit: Canon and Nikon lenses are pretty similarly priced throughout their lineups. By the time you get to focal lengths and speeds where there's any appreciable difference, you're talking "You don't buy these lenses without being a working pro who can write it off" money.
You should consider available lenses for borrowing, though. If you've got a buddy who happens to be a pro and shoots Canon, buy a bloody Canon and leech off his L-rich goodness!
My advice is to find a good independant camera store, or possibly a Ted's Camera store (they're generally pretty good, hire people with actual photography experience, etc.), and go an talk to them about what you want. They'll generally give you a chance to test the camera, make sure you're comfortable with it, and most devoted camera stores have some sort of second hand range.
Avoid buying "starter lens kits" (a body packaged with 1 or 2 lenses) unless you know the lenses are good quality. A lot of the time these lenses will be bottom of the range, and as someone said above, you're much better going with good lenses + medicore body than the other way around.
I'll head over to Ted's and check out those cameras. I can see what you mean by the lenses being important.
I'm not really sure what I want to shoot at the moment. Mostly just landscapes, maybe some moving things. Scenery mostly. So I'm not sure what kind of lenses I will need. I'll have a look via google of what lenses do what so I understand a little more.
I know what macro lenses are for and the very basic ones, but as I said, not an expert.
Thank you!
edit: I seem to think I need a fast lens so I can use natural light. How fast should it be? I read below 1.8?
Natural light shooting though, depending on what you are shooting, you can compensate in a number of ways, one is by having a "fast" lens, like you mentioned, you can also increase your exposure, which is great for landscapes, and other non moving targets (but will cause moving things to be blurred, and usually requires a tripod) or by increasing the ISO (which will cause more grain in the final image) essentially, depending on what you are willing to sacrifice, there are a number of ways to achieve your goal.
http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/
that's a site where you can get sample pictures and review lenses for the different manufacturers
For landscapes, your shutter speed doesn't really matter all that much as you'll be shooting everything from a tripod and nothing will be moving all that much. You also tend to shoot landscapes stopped way down (f/16-f/22) for the increased depth of field this gives you. In short, you don't need a fast lens to shoot landscapes. You might consider just getting the kit lens (18-55mm f/3.5-55 in most case) with your body and seeing which end you find yourself at - if you're always shooting at 18mm and wanting wider, look into a super-wide angle (Sigma 10-20mm or Pentax 12-24mm for Pentax, Canon 10-22mm if you do Canon, Nikon 12-24mm if you do Nikon). Alternately, if you find yourself wanting longer, pick up something longer (50-200mm zooms are very cheap, if slow).
Oh, and you won't need to stop down to f/8 with cheaper lenses to get sharp images. Granted, they won't be amazingly sharp wide open, but nothing unusable will be produced if you shoot a kit lens wide open. A lot of this can be handled with clever sharpening in PP anyways.
Cheers guys, anymore suggestions are welcome
Watch out on ebay, especially with specialty shops sometimes they will package a crappy lens/lenses with the body, they will even go as far as lying about the brand of lens they will send you. Scouring the sellers bad feedback is a good indicator if they will try to pull this on you.
Darkmoon's advice is solid especially the bit about the d40's etc.
I only put the link in there so you can see what I'm referring to in the wild, do not purchase anything from them, it's a complete scam operation.
There are also big warranty issues. Buying a camera body outside of your country, especially used but sometimes also new, may create big warranty issues should you need service from your country's camera manufacturer's service centre. This will be different for every manufacturer, but in general your country's service centre will only honour warranties on cameras purchased in the same country.
Check any site you may want to buy a camera from on resellerratings.com. There are a ridiculous number of scam sites that will offer cheap camera bodies either lacking critical components (pentaprism assemblies, lens mounts, etc.) or just never ship the bodies.
It seems like I want a: canon EOS 450D , which I think is the same as the rebel...Xsi?
So it comes with a standard (35mm?) lens? Should I really look into getting another lens straight away?
Any suggestions for books to get me started (so I don't have to ask noob questions here) would also be appreciated, if there are any must have books
edit: for instance. The canon comes with:
EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS
I have no idea what the hell that means, other than it is a lens. Can someone break it down for me :P
I heard 50 mm lenses are good.
edit: and these ones on ebay that list it as a "body" but have a picture of one with a lens...I'm assuming they don't actually come with a lens unless explicitly stated?
18-55mm is the focal length, it's a zoom so you get anywhere from 18 to 55mm.
I personally never owned an EF-S lens as I despise them on principle, so i don't understand exactly what the 18-55 'means' other than it's a wide to telephoto lens. Personally when one of my previous cameras came with the 20D I used to own I put it on ebay and got maybe $90 for it.
On a regular EF lens you can take the focal length times 1.6 to get the 'what it is on a 35mm SLR' number, but again teh numbers are pretty subjective you have to know how to translate it.
Here's a nice primer on how to understand what focal length means:
http://www.great-landscape-photography.com/focal-length.html
the 50mm f/1.8 lens from canon is one of the most under-rated lenses on the planet. It's at most US$90 at least in the states, cheap, durable, and produces some of the sharpest images around.
One thing I highly recommend is quickly learning how to shoot in full manual mode. One of my favorite books as far as teaching how to use all the function/ability your nice DSLR lets you do was 'Understanding Exposure' by Bryan Peterson (think that was the name). It's a very nice short book that even has some little 'here try this to see how it works' things and covers basic exposure, f-stop, etc. It's not too artsy, and it's not too dry. Worked for me.
Focal length is focal length. There's no difference between an 18-55 on a crop camera and one on a full frame. There's absolutely nothing wrong with EF-S lenses in fact one of the best lenses available is EF-S - the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS which I own is an essential lens for me. Unless you plan on buying an expensive full frame camera in the near future EF-S lenses are the way to go.
The image appears to be blown up, magnified, whatever you want to call it. So an EF mount 50mm prime, installed on a Rebel (or 10D) which has a 1.6x focal length multiplier (crop factor) gives an effective image through the viewfinder (and onto the sensor) of looking through a 35mm frame camera with an 80mm lens.
I have seen this by comparing the VF and pictures shot through my 50mm prime installed on my 10D vs. my friends 1Ds.
A 50mm lens on a 1.6 crop factor sensor does not exactly yield the FOV of an 80mm lens on a full frame sensor, but it's a good enough estimate.
Also an 18-55 is more wide to normal, than wide to tele.
Is he right? Would I be better off with the 1000D? It's a lot cheaper...probably about 800-900 AUS dollars new.
Most of the ones I saw today were bundled with lenses. I was unsure of their quality though.
I saw this lens, which seemed to be the one you guys spoke of ( a 50 mm one)
So, what do you guys think?
edit: Am I better off getting just the body first then buying a lens? or getting the lens that comes with the 450D already packaged in. If the former, any specific lenses you'd recommend for an all rounder/sharp image? I'm checking out that review site for reference.
edit 2: Okay, I realised that lens has no zoom. Which is probably a no go at the moment! I think I'll survive with the bundled lens.
I also found a really good deal via a reputable store.
1000 AUD (700 US) (at least good for Australia, we usually get reamed, this camera is sometimes 2000 at some stores) for the camera, the stock lens, a crumpler bag and a 75 dollar visa prepaid card, which would come in handy. Seems like a great deal.
As for first lens,
When I picked up my camera I got something like this although if I were getting a starter zoom I'd get something like this so I could have some useable wide end.
The idea is that when you're starting out and you're just walking around shooting stuff trying to figure out how to get shots properly focussed and exposed, get a zoom that goes wide to normal/slightly tele so you have a lot of useable range around normal perspective. This is why the kit lens is often a zoom in that range. I'd avoid bundles that include real telephoto length unless you're sure the kind of photography you're interested in needs that.
Those links aren't lens recommendations or anything, for that you can check out sites like fredmiranda or photozone. It could be the kit lens included would do you fine until you figure out what primes you want (or zooms, but I'm biased towards primes).
On a 1.6 crop camera, normal perspective is exactly halfway between this and this (I have the latter and it's the lens I use the most). An alternative to getting a normal zoom as your first lens would be to get a normal lens and just zoom with your feet. This would be how I'd start out to save money on glass and not be left with lenses that I no longer use, but I also know how to use the gear and have some idea how to compose a shot.
Do I recommend the Tamron I linked? I guess. I learned a lot shooting with it, but I've loaned it to a friend and I'm not in any hurry to get it back. I might've learned just as much with the kit lens, which adds like $100 to the bundled price. The canon standard zoom I linked costs 2-3X as much as the Tamron (and significantly more than the Rebel body) and I'm comfortable dropping that on glass now.
I'd say invest in the best glass you can afford, because you'll still have it 5-10-15 years later, eventhough you've upgraded the body several times since. Either that, or get the cheapest standard zoom so it hurts less when you eventually put it down in favor of better glass.
Edit: In the last bit above, I may have implied you'll be upgrading your camera body multiple times, this is not necessarily the case. I've had my 10D for 5 years and I feel no urgency to upgrade. I'd like spot metering, but in all other picture-taking capacities my current camera is fine. The only feature that would make me jump out and upgrade right now would be an affordable Canon body that had a full frame sensor (or a significantly shorter focal length multiplier).
Also, I fail, but the dark_side, how did you get that sig? I had a look on flickerbadge, but couldn't figure it out.
Head over to dpreview.com if you want to see good, detailed reviews of the different bodies. You can also compare specs between them there, too.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
450D will treat you just fine for a few years. Remember, it is the lens that makes the most difference. There are numerous 3rd party firmwares that will let you extend your camera's capabilities. So no need to overspend on the body. This is of course my opinion, don't know what others think.
I wouldnt worry too much about it.