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Best 35mm SLR Camera for Beginners?
TibbonZero asks: "I've been thinking of getting into photography, but want to stay with 35mm film instead of going digital. Used 35mm SLRs seem to be the best bet, but which ones should I seriously consider? I would like to spend less than $200 on the camera itself, and start off with some cheaper lenses. It seems to me like there's still a lot more bang for your buck in film vs digital cameras at this point, even with film processing costs (I have almost a whole darkroom setup that my father used to use). I think I want a manual focus camera." Don't forget, a 35mm camera (film or digital) would make a nice Christmas Gift for that budding photographer in your life!
Centon make great beginner cameras, they are part of the jessops brand who are the largest photographic company in Europe.
Nearly every school recommends their cameras when students sign up for photograpy degrees.
Check out some of their models here
Both Canon and Nikon offer digital SLR bodies for when you are ready, and used equipment is easy to find (unlike some of the other manufacturers).
Keep in mind a few things:
For what it's worth, I recently replaced an old Olympus system with a Canon system. Rebel 2000 body, Elan 7e body, 28-90mm lens, and 100-300mm lens. It's been great. At some point I will buy a digital body too.
One of the most rugged budget SLRs ever made, and great value for the money.
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I recently went through this issue myself and ended up settling on the Nikon N65. My reasons were somewhat arbitrary, but I have been happy.
I preferred it over similar Canon models becuase it has the ring that holds the lens is made of metal instead of plastic and it just feels sturdier. Also Nikon tends to make slightly better lenses than Canon.
I preferred it over the N55 becuase it has a depth-of-field preview button, which I come to deeply appreciate.
But mostly I picked it becuase it was around $100 (without any lenses) and I read lots of good reviews.
Hope that helps!
I got a Pentax Asahi off of eBay, and have loved it. Very nice camera.
The reason not to go digital, incidentally, is that digital cameras still come nowhere near the resolution of regular film. Also, if you have access to a darkroom, there's lots of stuff you can do there that's just not the same done on photoshop.
It's the same reason not all artists grabbed their styluses and switched to the tablet PC.
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I'm not sure the auto-everything cameras are that much faster. Once you have something like a K1000 dialed in to where you think the action will be, you can get a picture from it as soon as you stab the shutter. With nearly any auto-whatever camera, the camera will spend a second or more making sure the focus, exposure, etc. are correct before it finally takes the picture. You might be able to speed things up by overriding stuff you know won't change (when taking pictures at an airshow, for instance, you can leave the focus locked at infinity), but then you're not doing things any differently than you would with an all-manual camera.
(I need to have my K1000 looked at sometime...the film-used counter resets by itself, and I think the pictures it's taking now aren't as sharp as they used to be. That last bit might be my imagination, though, or maybe it's the film processor...I should probably run some slide film through it and see how those pictures turn out. Most of my picture-taking has shifted to a Coolpix 995, but it'd be nice to have the K1000 as a backup. Besides, I have wider and longer lenses for it, as well as filters and other fun stuff.)
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It's a bit out of your budget (I think it runs about $250-275 in most places), but it's a good beginning camera - I and many of my friends have one each. You might be able to pick up a used one for $200 or less. I'd strongly urge scrimping together the extra cash and laying out for one, though.
;) When compared to other entry level cameras, it's certainly a heavyweight contender, despite its light body (it's only about 6 ounces). Many people are kind of turned off by this, claiming that it's fragile, but again, if you're an amateur, you're not taking this thing rock climbing with you, are you? If you actually want to do sports photography, or want to bring it into other situations where it needs to be pretty sturdy, you should be looking at pro-level cameras, like Nikon F-series anyway.
The lens it comes with stock (28-80mm zoom) isn't one of Canon's higher quality ones, but it still gets excellent shots when used properly - very good on the bang/buck ratio. I've taken some great pictures with it.
The camera has several modes, some of which are fully automatic (which I find useful at family gatherings or whenver I just want to take pictures of friends, etc, quickly), but has plenty of semi-automatic and fully manual modes that allow you to do more artistic stuff when you're into that too.
Plus, whenever you're ready to get more serious, all Canon EF-mount lenses will fit it. (A very wide selection is available.)
Frankly, though, this is the wrong place to ask -- look around on Google for "camera reviews"; there are many websites that discuss photography as or more in-depth than people here discuss linux distributions, and you'll get a better feel for what serious photo enthusiasts and professionals use/like/dislike/etc. photozone.de is a good place to start.
(For what it's worth, most reviews I've read of the Rebel-2000 only ever had complaints when they were comparing the camera to something like the Elan, or another camera that cost twice as much. Well, no crap it doesn't have as many features -- you're not paying to get them!
By far above anything else, however, the most important factor of a camera is: how does it feel to you? I took the Rebel over the entry-level Nikon because I just felt more comfortable with it. Most camera shops will let you shoot a roll or play with cameras they've got for sale -- you should only go to camera shops that will let you play with the merchendise. If you like a used Pentax over this, then go for it. If you'd prefer the Nikon, that'd be fine too -- you're the one who has to hold it and position it and line it all up: you better like doing it!
Good luck!
/. really isn't the best place to go to find answers about this question. You may want to try the following websites:
Photo.net
THE professional photographer's website with TONS of information about different cameras, tips, whole articles on how to get that perfect picture, and learning how to get the most out of whatever camera you have. I've found it to be the diffinitive starting point for any information about photography.
Digital Photography Review
If you plan on getting a digital camera, this site is considered the digital camera authority.
Hope these help you and any other would-be amateur photographers out there.
Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I.
Remember to think to your future, Do you want to be Re-Buying the lenses you have when you want to get a new body, If you like nikon but cant afford a Good Nikon, Dont go and buy a canon with hopes of buying a Nikon in the future...
Buy a low end of what ever system you want, then when you get a new body that has alot more features you can still use the lenses that you have.
and spend the money on the glass, thats where the picture really matters. If you get slow glass you will really be frustrated with having to search out something to steady your camera on in low light.
look for an older Nikon Not too old because they changed the mounts, and get yourself a 50mm 1.4 or a 1.2 lens if you can find one, start with that.
moo.
I've taken a non-intro photo class at a top-notch art school, and I can assure you that the camera was not the limiting factor in my work, and there were plenty of talented students doing great things with equally primitive equipment.
One thing that's worth noting about old cameras and lenses is that they've already done most of their depriciating. Start with one of the good old systems mentioned here, and if you decide in a year that you'd be better off with autofocus, or digital, or a view camera, or whatever (based on your actual experience with the camera), you can sell your kit and get about as much as you paid for it.
I would recommend Ansel Adams' series The Camera, The Negative, and The Print for learning the big picture of how your camera, lenses, meter, film, and paper work together, and how to get them to meet your creative vision. Even if you don't plan to do darkroom work yourself, it's good to have an understanding of what's going on. I am a technical person, and find Adams' writing to be very clear and satisfactorily detailed with a strong grounding in physical principles. His contributions to photographic education and technique are at least as important as his images. This series is pretty light on the creative aspects of photography, so you'll have to look elsewhere for that.
I started with a K-1000, but when it was $130 from K-mart in 1984. They aren't made anymore and are more expensive than warranted due to (overblown) reputation.
Yes, they're tough (mine still worked fine 4 years ago with no CLA (clean, lubricate and adjust) when I traded up to a Super Program), but they're lacking:
1) Crappy meter. Slow to react and wierdly non-linear at low light levels, so not good for existing light photography with an f/1.4 50mm lens & 400ASA film.
2) No depth of field (a.k.a. depth of focus) preview. This is a hard feature to learn how to use, but control of DOF is a big part of learning photography and one area where 35mm kicks the crap out of point-and-shoot digicams (which have small sensors, short focal lengths and deep DOF so hard to knock the background out of focus for portraits).
3) Slow flash sync (X) speed. 1/60th, right? Once you learn manual existing-light photography, you might want to try manual (guide number/focus distance) flash photography. For fill-flash (lighting up a face shaded by a hat brim or eyes shaded by brow), faster sync gives you flexibility.
[I actually don't recommend trying to learn to use bounce & other tricks to make flash look more natural on anything but digital unless you have a darkroom. Too much lag between exposure & result to figure out what you're doing]
4) rubberized-cloth fully mechanical shutter. This means the battery only powers the meter & the camera will work with no battery at all. However, it isn't as accurate as quartz-controlled metal blade shutters like in the SuperProgram.
That said, the Pentax line is nice because the lenses work on the new bodies (including their digital *ist), though sometimes metering doesn't work. Nikon is the only other mfg. that kept the mount the same when they went autofocus-- Canon & Minolta changed. Minolta still makes their manual focus cameras, though. Canon manuals are orphaned with parts getting harder to find.
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Make sure you get a "fast" lens. 85mm or 100mm f/2 or 50mm f/1.4. It's damned hard to focus an f/2 50mm lens (which came on my K1000 originally) because the DOF wide-open is too deep to give you a "snappy" focus.
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Oh and KEH for mail-order used.
Well, a Pentax would be ideal then, since (with a few exceptions) all Pentax-compatible lenses and cameras made since the mid-seventies are interoperable, with each combination allowing the use of all features common to both cameras.
Called Building a 35MM SLR System
Photo.net is one of the best resources for photography questions... I can get just as lost there as I can here reading the posts.
moo.
Get a manual Nikon (the FM-3 is REALLY nice, or try for an FM-2 or even an older FG...if you were in Japan, I would offer to sell you my FG as I rarely use it in favor of my FA). There is one main reason why Nikon is better:
Nikon has not significantly changed their lens mount since the F-mount was created.
What does this mean for you? Well...let me tell you my situation. Right now, I have a Nikon FG (ca.1983) and a Nikon FA (ca.1984) as my camera bodies. I have a new auto-focus 50mm Nikon lens from 1999, a 70-300mm Nikon autofocus from 1998, a late 1980s (I think) Promaster 28mm, a 27.5mm extention tube (2000), and a bellows/slide duplicator from the 1960s. They all work with both bodies perfectly well (except of course I cannot take advantage of auto-focus).
The point is that you can use almost any F-mount lens with almost any Nikon camera (though you may have some small problems with early lenses, but then again, maybe not...do your homework). Canon, IIRC, has changed their lens mount a few times, so you don't really have the option of chosing an old body and new lens to start with and then perhaps upgrading the body in the future or using old lenses as well...
IMNSHO, that is why Nikon is better. ;-)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I'd agree with the parent on this one -- I started with a K-1000, which was a great camera to learn with. However, when the camera finally died my upgrade options were a) buy another Pentax (and have fewer accessories to choose from) or b) replace all of my lenses (and be broke). It seems that the selection of bodies and lenses are far greater with Canon and Nikon, and these cameras offer more "professional" features. In addition, you can find a lot more nice used Canon and Nikon equipment on eBay.
Long story short, I bought a Canon Eos Elan 7 and I'm thrilled with it. It has a few more of the features that I wanted (bracketing, remote shutter release) and the number of lenses and other accessories now available is awesome. The obligatory shameless plug: Photos are here.
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First, go pick up the Complete Kodak Book of Photography. Some of it is a little basic, but it's a good source of tips, and a great comprehensive book. Unfortunately, it seems to be out of print on, but Amazon does have it used. It may have renamed itself or something. Go to a brick and mortar bookstore and browse.
If you're doing developing and printing, you'll want to build your own enlarger. You learn a lot about the process, and you get geek points. For more geek points, build your own timer with a relay that times the exposure on the enlarger.
As far as a camera goes, you want a simple one to start off with. A good SLR will cost a LOT of money, so be prepared to either buy used for your first time, or have some really really nice relatives, or befriend someone who works for Canon. The manual vs automatic debate is -1, Overrated. Any decent "automatic" SLR camera will have a full manual mode. Just because you have the automatic feature doesn't mean you have to use it. As a beginner, you will want to stay in manual mode the whole time to play around, but automatic is useful for quick shots if you're also using it for snapshots. Don't get anything that doesn't at least have an automatic mode. (basically, automatic:manual::emacs:vi. Subsitute the relevant religious arguments)
My first SLR was a used Canon AE-1. ("So simple, anyone can use it!") This was Canon's first automatic exposure (guess what AE stands for) camera. Focus is completely manual, but the f/stop can be set manually or automatically depending on the mode. So it can be a full manual camera if you want. It's a great camera, and you could probably pick one up for cheap these days, though they're getting old enough that they're collectors items, so they might be more expensive. A great, great camera.
If you buy a new camera instead, it may have a built-in pop-up flash (like the Canon Elan series) It'll be crap for anything except snapshots and some indoor photos. If you want to play around with lighting and the like, you want a real flash (sold separately) that attaches to the camera shoe. And a reflector, probably.
For vendors, you'll want to find a local one for most chemicals (since shipping those is a bitch due to regulations). Check your yellow pages. If you have a local photo store (the old fashioned kind, not the kiosk in Wal-Mart), they might be able to point you in the right direction. For equipment, B&H Photo and Video in NY is the way to go (www.bhphotovideo.com). Their catalog is the size of a phonebook and they have a good selection and the BEST customer service I have ever dealt with. 42nd Street Photo is ok, but their customer service folks are surly.
You'll also want to play around with good quality film. Kodak Tri-X pan is still the standard for B&W, especially for entry-level. For slide film (slides are a must if you're taking nature shots - you can't appreciate a sunset over a mountain range in 5x7 foramt), Kodakchrome 64 is still a classic, except it has to be sent back to Kodak for processing. (Although people have told me that's no longer true, and some larger labs can do it, but I didn't think Kodak had licensened the technology - it's a different developing process). I like Fujichrome Sensia and Velvia (The latter is a little better). If you're traveling at all, get a lead pouch or request a hand examination of your film. I had some 400 speed film ruined by the new TSA x-rays recently (despite the claim that they don't effect any film below 1600). Pro films will need to be kept in the fridge until you use them. As will paper. Playing around with high-speed film is fun too, for shooting in the dark with no flash. It'll be very very grainy though.
Oh, and if you plan to take pictures of
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You're too dependent on your gear, sir. I've shot plenty of (IMHO) quality sports work with my K-1000. There's more than enough exposure latitude in the film you should be using for fast work to allow for snap shooting. That's part of photography that's overlooked by more casual amateurs-- film selection should reflect the intended subject.
... 10 years? I shoot mostly nature work these days, and use a handheld self-powered meter. When your battery dies, you're SOL unless you brought a backup-- and every ounce counts when you're three days from anywhere and carrying everything on your back.
The unmentioned advantages of an all manual camera:
1) Better performance at climate extremes. I don't have to concern myself with anything other than fogging in cold weather. How are your lithium batteries at -10degF?
2) Fewer failure modes. In fact, the K-1000 has no electronic failures. I don't think I've had a battery in mine for
A poster above complained about the 1/60 flash sync. That poster is forgetting that 1/60 is the *standard*. Anything higher than that is a *bonus*, but all cameras default to 1/60; this allows for dumb flashes (rather than electronically synced) to be used to control the exposure rather than using the camera's shutter or aperture.
-- Cerebus
Dude, you have it so backwards. You pick the lens first, then find a camera that will fit it.
This may sound odd, but it's true. Assuming you know a bit about photography, you know what kind of aperature you'll need based on the kinds of pictures you'll be taking - low light, flash, outdoors, etc. You also know what focal length will suit you best. Look at the major brands - Nikon, Pentax, Cannon, Olympus, etc. and find a lens (or maybe two lenses) that will be your workhorse. Then choose a body you can afford with the idea that it will be your backup body later when you can afford better.Back in the '70s I fell in love with the Olympus 100x2.8. I didn't like the "big nose" effect of a 50mm or 35mm when doing a head shot. A 135mm is big and too long to use indoors. Most 100s and 105s were f4.5 at the time. The 100x2.8 is the same size as most 50mm lenses, so it fits in a regular camera case. Shucks! What's not to like about it? So anyway I got a dealer to substitute the 100x2.8 for the normal 50x1.8 on an OM10 body. It's still my main 35mm camera today.
Based on your personal preferences, pick a lens first, then find your best deal.BTW, the zoom lenses are OK unless you want to do enlargements. Then they seem a bit fuzzy.
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Two pieces of advice:
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- Spend more money on your lens than on your body. In fact, don't get a cheap kit lens that comes with a camera. Buy a decent body that has the features you need but don't throw away money on a poor quality lens. If you can't afford the lenses you need right now, save. But don't waste money on a poor quality lens. I was given this advice when I bought my first 35mm SLR. I ignored it (on grounds of cost) and now I've had to replace the lens anyway with one that produces decent image quality. While zooms are flexible, primes are often great value for money in terms of image quality.
- When you buy a 35mm SLR you aren't buying a camera. You're buying a system. While there are good arguments for all the systems, IMO the Canon EOS system is the one with the best options for the future. A big part of the reason for this is Canon's current dominance of the digital SLR market. If you buy into the EOS system, you have a clear upgrade path to a DSLR. Yes, Nikon 35mm lenses will work with their DSLRs but Nikon seems to be headed down the path to sub-35mm digital sensors as a standard and is therefore bringing out lenses which will not work on your film SLR. (Canon have done this too but not for any serious lens, just as a way of selling cheap cameras.) Canon's clear intention is towards full-frame DSLR sensors and ultimately that's what most photographers want. Anyway, it's a complex issue and my overall point is, be careful what system you choose. It's not the body that matters but the lenses and there are really only two big 35mm system at the moment (Canon and Nikon) and Canon's EOS seems like the one with the best future. All the people who've bought into the other systems will now flame me but look into the facts for yourself. One opinion:
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Not only are pentax lenses and bodies massively cross-compatible within their own timeframe, but most modern pentax bodies are backwards compatible to their older lenses, as Pentax kept the bayonet mount when they moved to autofocus lenses. This means that you can take almost any Pentax lens on the market, new or used, and make it work on most modern pentax bodies. Can't say that for Canon, can we?
I have mounted the 50mm stock lens from my mother's K-1000 (older than I am!) on my MZ-5n (ZX-5n for you americans in the house) and it worked just fine.
For someone who wants manual focus, I would sugest the MZ-M (ZX-M in the states). It is basically a modern version of the K-1000, but it can be used in automatic exposure modes (aperature priority, shutterspeed priority, or full on automatic).
Seriously, I wouldn't recommend buying a new manual focus SLR, unless you're really strapped for cash, or have an asshat professor that insists on it. Almost all SLR bodies can turn the autofocus off, and revert to manual focus. I was considering the MZ-M myself, as I just wanted a new K-1000, but I decided that having the ability to leave it in autofocus might be the difference between capturing a moment, and wasting a frame.
In regards to the ask slashdot, I seriously suggest that you check out your local camera shops. Hit 3 or 4 of them, and talk to a salesgeek. Everyone has their pet brand and favorite camera (I, too, am guilty of reaching for certain brands in our showcase automatically.) There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you end up making a well-informed decision. Any serious retailer should be willing to teach you a bit about how a 35mm SLR works, and break down the differences between the brands and models without expecting you to buy on the spot.
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