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Seeking a Decent Digital SLR Camera for Beginners?
lancomandr asks: "I'm interested in getting into digital photography. I have looked at many tutorials and buying guides but there are so many digital SLRs I have no idea which ones to even start considering. I want to be able to make decently large prints, I'd like to get a decent amount of use out of it before upgrading, I want good battery life and durability is key. All of you photographers out there, any suggestions? What did you buy when you started?"
I have a rebel. Battery life is awesome, and im pretty sure its just as good as the nikon. Since the sensor is only used when actually taking a picture (no live preview), and the lcd is almost always off, and the battery is large, you get hundreds of shots off a single charge.
large prints - its 6 megapixel. And its very noise free, since the sensor is physically very large. Beats the 8mp point & shoots by a ways.
costs a bunch tho, because youll probably want a longer zoom fairly quickly, and a large CF card (1gb or 512mb), and possibly a flash and tripod. Id budget an extra 500 to 1000$ over a rebel or d70 kit. If you go for a canon 10D you need to budget more, because it doesnt come with a lens, and theres no cheap equiv to the rebel kit lens for canon. (to get the wideangle, after the sensor crop / multipplier).
the sensor crop / multiplier is great if you want tele, but sucky for wide. Since you need extra wide lenses. its 1.6x for canon (18mm lens ~= 28mm lens). i think its similar for nikon.
Incorrect, and you even mention the competition which kills it - the Nikon D70. As much as I love Canon cameras, the D70 blows away the Digital Rebel and the D10 in many respects, and is priced similarly to the Rebel.
I'd still prefer the Canon lenses, though, and when you buy an SLR 'system,' you're really buying into a lens line as much or more than the camera body itself. There's no way I'd choose Nikon's lens line over Canon's at this point, which is too bad, because of the D70. *shrug*
"SLR" stands for Single Lens Reflex. This means that light passes through the lens, off a mirror and/or CCD, and into your eye. It means that there is no parralax error due to you and the camera seeing your subject from different angles. It doesn't necessarily mean you have the ability to change lenses, nor does it mean it's a "professional grade" camera. It doesn't even have to be much more complicated than your average point-and-shoot, though I'm assuming you want to be able to grow as you learn.
In the lower class of Digital SLR bodies with interchangeable lenses, you've got the Nikon D70 and D100, the Canon Digital Rebel, and a few cameras by Sigma and Fuji. These cameras (bodies with interchangeable lenses) will allow you the most flexibility, options, and quality. However, they are also much more expensive, starting at about the $1000 mark. For the moment, I'll assume this is the area you're looking at.
First off, the Canon Digital Rebel is not the only camera in its class. Nikon just released the D70, which seems to kick the Rebel's ass. I spoke to Nikon Digital Support (800-645-6689), and they said the memory buffer was so fast that you could pretty much keep shooting continuously until you ran out of space. Compared to older models that would only do "burst mode" for up to five seconds, that's quite a feat. The D70 is only about 3 frames/second, but the D2H can do 8 frames/second for five seconds before the buffer gets full. Of course, the D2H is about $3K, but I can dream. ;-)
Second, you are not limited to (and may not want) a camera with interchangable lenses. The Nikon Coolpix 5700 and 8700 are pretty decent (the latter being 8 megapixels!), and the Canon PowerShot Pro1, G5, and S1 are also options. One definite advantage the cameras without interchangable lenses have is that they are going to be much smaller and lighter.
As per several recommendations already posted, definitely check out DPReview. Great site, lots of info, full testing, sample shots, menus and interfaces, etc. Think about what your priorities are. How high of a resolution do you need? 6 megapixels is plenty for an 8x10. (4 can actually get you by.) If you aren't printing anything larger than that, you're fine. Do you care if there's a proprietary battery, or do you need the flexibility of "standard"-sized batteries? (AA, AAA, etc.) Do you have a preference for media type? (I prefer CompactFlash, as it tends to give the best cost/size ratio, and the card size options are larger.) Do you need lens interchangeability? Do you want it? Regardless of what you want *right now*, where do you want to take your photography eventually? Make sure your camera choice now will not limit your goals later.
Personally, I'd lean more towards the larger SLR bodies with interchangeable lenses. They're bigger, heavier, and *can be* more expensive... though this is by no means true any more. However, the options you have are incredible. Of course, you may well just be leaving the camera in automatic mode all the time, which makes those options useless, overpriced oversized, etc. However, if you *want* those options later... you may not have to "upgrade" anything other than your lens options. Now that
THe biggest difference I see between digicams and DSLRs is control.
In addition to the plethora of lenses out there, the SLRs give you much more control over the actual photographic process. Shutter speed, Apeture, Whitebalance, ISO etc. Yes many of these options can be set on a higher end digicam (a cheaper one will not let you set apeture or shutter) However, the EASE of setting these options is much different.
With my D70, I can control almost all camera settings, while my eye is still in the viewfinder. I can totally reconfigure the camera in a matter of seconds.
In a digicam, you have to scroll through several menus to get the options shot.
I recently took photographs at a local community theatre, during a live performance. (I was hired to be the photographer, I wasn't sneaking)
They didn't want flash, so the lighting was VERY low.
In order to get good shots, I had to use a slow shutterspeed, at a wide apeture, at very high ISO. This totally wrecked any of the faster scenes (especially dancing) due to blur.
With the D70 masterwheel, I could VERY quickly switch my shutter speed to give me the right shot as the scene changed. Dialog, I would go slower, and get more detail and light. Dance, I would speed it up, and get the action. These shots would be impossible on digicam.
One other big difference is lenses. Not just the interchangability (which is huge, but if you get a superzoom (28-300 or something like that) you wont be changing very much (at the cost of some quality). But also the size. Remember, photography is recording light. The bigger your lens, the more light, which means more detail, more color etc.
A point and shoot has a tiny lens. A Tiny apeture, even wide open.