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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?"
Try http://dpreview.com, they are the best resource around. Marc
This is the only "entry" level digital SLR. Plenty of features, low price point, excellent camera.
You don't have all the professional features of a canon d10 or nikon d70 or higher, but you want an entry level right?
I'd say go with canon because they've only changed their lens format once. Much better chance of being able to get good used equipment/sell your use equipment when you want to upgrade.
I'm saving for a d10 myself.
You can get a Rebel for $900.
You can hack it to be 10D for free.
You can buy a $200 Muvo and swap out the 4G microdrive.
Hi. I'm Mr. Obvious.
He asked about digital SLR's, not non-SLR.
Thanks. You've been a great audience! I'll be here all week!
I have a rebel. Battery life is awesome, and im pretty sure its just as good as the nikon. Since the sensor is only used when actually taking a picture (no live preview), and the lcd is almost always off, and the battery is large, you get hundreds of shots off a single charge.
large prints - its 6 megapixel. And its very noise free, since the sensor is physically very large. Beats the 8mp point & shoots by a ways.
costs a bunch tho, because youll probably want a longer zoom fairly quickly, and a large CF card (1gb or 512mb), and possibly a flash and tripod. Id budget an extra 500 to 1000$ 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*
I own a Rebel myself and it really is a great camera. DPreview is a good place to read the reviews and check out the forums. You might see a lot of people complaining and such about not having some advanced features and the like. For me personally, I bought this to learn with and understand more about photography, and so far some of those advanced features I have not really required. There may be a point where I do, however, for now, this camera has everything that I want. Plus, with firmware hacks, that can even be changed. The thing to remember is that after you start getting in to lenses, which Canon has a great reputation for, then switching the body becomes somewhat more trivial since you will not have to have switching costs as you will be able to utilize those lenses again and again (unless you completely jump ship and switch everything). I myself will be very unlikely to do that because the camera is great, lenses are great, and you know that Canon is going to continue to put out high-quality stuff (not saying Nikon or anyone else isn't...) Just my .02
"You can get the attachments for lenses and such, but digital SLR cameras dont need that stuff... anyone who says more lenses make a digital camera better is stupid."
Ummm wrong. It depends on what you want to do with the camera. If you want to just take snaps of your kids birthday party then you can get away with just a standard digital. Tell you what to out and try to take a picture of Saturn with your simple digital and tell me that it is as good as a telescope with a camera adapter? How about taking a picture of a bird sitting on a branch 100 yards away? Want to take a picture of an ant on a flower? There is a reason that proffesionals use SLRs or sometimes even medium format camera.
The optics that the light passes through make a BIG difference in the quality of the picture.
As to a digital camera being just as you put it "a light capturing computer". Cannon has been making light capturing computers for years and do a very good job. I am sure the HP 945 is a good point a shoot camera but it is not in as flexiable as an SLR.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Actually, RAW is one of the biggest benefits to shooting digital. I think you will see where most people who want to have a digital SLR want to be a little more serious than just point and shoot, and will use tools like Photoshop CS. If you are shooting with a digital SLR, some post-processing is really needed (hence why it isn't considered a point-and-shoot). Post-processing with Photoshop and a RAW image file gives so much more flexibility in what you do with the image (exposure, white balance, and on and on) that you would be surprised...
If you want an entry level digital camera, you're going to have to stick with point and shoot type camera.
As everyone else has pointed out, the Digital Rebel is the cheapest digital SLR, but at $900 it's not exactly what you'd call entry level. I have the 10D, and I know several people that have the Rebel, and for the money, the Rebel wins hands down. So, if you're going to get one, get the Rebel, and put some money into some really nice lenses. Don't plan on upgrading any time soon, the Rebel hasn't dropped in price since it's been out, and the 10D has actually gone up in price. For a while the 10D couldn't be found anywhere, every place was out of stock.
Also note, with the Rebel, it's a very popular camera. So when you have trouble figuring something out, there's a lot of people available to help. And then there's the firmware hacks, whi ch you should already know about.
The Nikon D70 and the Canon EOS-300D ("digital rebel"; whatever, Canon) are pretty comparable camera bodies, but the kicker is the lens. You can buy either one with a bundled lens; the 300D comes with a crappy lens, while the D70 comes with a very respectable lens.
Definitely get the D70. If you get the 300D and find you enjoy photography, you'll want to replace it in a year or two. If you get the D70 and find you enjoy photography, you'll be happy with it for much longer.
And because the D70 is newer, the resale price will be better if you decide to bail out.
I write in my journal
You may not need an SLR. You can get fully-manual digital cameras for less than half the price that take great pictures. I've been very happy with my Canon G3 (4MP). I haven't touched my analog SLR since. I will get a DSLR eventually, but as an amature, it just doesn't make sense at the moment.
The digital market is still relatively new, and big camera companies have DSLR prices pretty high in order to recoup R&D costs. Film cameras have been around for the better part of the 20th century and are tried and true.
Also, when you upgrade to a digital SLR in a few years, you can keep the film one around just in case. One more thing to keep in mind: some old school cameras (Nikon FM3A, older models) can be used without a battery, so battery life is not an issue. Good luck!
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
FWIW, I've even talked to a couple of photographers that shoot for the Chicago Sun Times (or was it the Chicago Tribune?) and they swear by the Nikon D70, even over a D10 (and far and away above the Digital Rebel).
Sure, the price is a bit high for an entry SLR, but not, in my opinon, for a entry *digital* SLR, at this point in time. If you want to be on the hot technology side of life, you do end up paying a bit of a premium...but to get what the poster wants, that is an SLR that is full-featured and won't need to be exchanged for a better model soon, the D70 is the clear choice.
"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.
First of all, do you have any experience in photography? If so, have you ever had a film SLR, or point and shoot?
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I'm a big one for learning things the hard way first. You can pick up a used 35mm SLR for next to nothing and you can learn how to be a good photographer far easier than you can (IMHO) with a digital camera. A lot of times people forget that photography is about taking good pictures, NOT playing with cool toys on the computer.
It's pretty cool to be able to instantly see how the image will turn out, pop it into the gimp or photoshop, adjust the color/balance/shadows/levels, etc, but having to wait a week to finish up a roll of film, get it back from processing, and having to imagine what the image will look like when you take it will make you a much better photographer. The key to taking pictures that aren't 'snapshots' is to be able to know what it will look like before you take the picture. Digital takes this away from the end user a bit and you end up just taking pictures of everything and ending up with 99.9% crap.
end rant
Regarding the purchase of the d-slr, if you have any existing lenses the choice is pretty clear. The D-Rebel takes any canon EOS lense, and you have a wide variety of choices for lenses (including image stabalized lenses). The nikon D70 takes any nikon lenses. The *ist-d will take any pentax K/KA mount lense.
If you have no lenses then it's a matter of what system you like (remember the body is a throwaway, you'll be investing in lenses if you get into it and will upgrade to a better model eventually and you will keep on using your lenses. If you're budget minded you probably will be looking at the d-rebel and you can eventually upgrade to the next step up. If your budget is a bit bigger you can look at the nikon or the pentax.
When I went through this I ended up buying the pentax *ist-d, at about twice the cost of the d-rebel. It's the smallest d-slr out there, and is light and fits in my hands nicely. It's more comparable with the canon 10d from what I understand, and having several pentax lenses already made the choice a bit easier. Of course, now I'm looking at buying more lenses to replace my older manual lenses, but that's the nature of expensive hobbies like photography and computers
One of the best pieces of advice I got about choosing a d-slr was to find something you're comfortable with. If it's too big or too small, or the menu or controls aren't intuitive or easy to use, you won't use it as much, it won't be taken with you everywhere, and will end up collecting dust. If you can spend more *with reason*, do. Don't (IMHO) settle for say, the d-rebel if it feels too big in your hands, or if you're going to do sports photography and need the bigger buffer in the d-70.
Remember, you'll be saving your money for lenses
I think it depends on the kind of photography you do. If you're shooting images such as landscapes with huge amounts of detail, then go ahead and buy a film camera and pay through the nose for film, developing and printing.
But if you're like me and enjoy the sheer act of taking a lot of pictures, that kind of approach would bankrupt you. I love my Canon EOS D30 3.5mp digital SLR because I can take as many pictures as I want without worrying about the cost. In my first year of ownership, I took over 7,500 shots - which would have probably cost more than my digital SLR to make and print - and I paid $3,300 for it.
I didn't print many of my images until I bought a HP Color LaserJet 3500, which made it inexpensive to do so. Now I've made maybe 100 prints, all of which look beautiful, even 8x10s from my 3.5mp camera. You're going to say that you'd get better detail and finer resolution and glossier prints with an photo inkjet, and you're right -- but how many photos will you print out at $2 per page?
In other words, there's a quantity versus quality question. The more pictures you can take, the more you'll learn and the better you'll get. If you're restricted by budgetary limitations, you'll wish you got your digital SLR.
D
I'm a Canon user so I'll talk Canon, one point at a time...
"I'm interested in getting into digital photography."
Getting into DSLR at the bottom of the ladder will prove expensive because you'll spend $1000 on a camera/lenses and then a few months later you'll be buying more, more, more.
It's better to spend more to start with and get some good, non-beginner equipment that will last you for many years.
"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."
Remember that I'm only talking Canon, in which case your choice is between the Rebel/300D and the 10D.
"I want to be able to make decently large prints"
The 300D and 10D are both 6Mpx and will both print nicely up to A3. The 300D sensor is essentially the same as the 10D but it is produced more cheaply and there is some feeling that the image quality is slightly inferior.
"I'd like to get a decent amount of use out of it before upgrading"
I've used the Rebel/300D and I upgraded to the 10D within a month. I then upgraded to the 1D. I'd recommend the 10D to anyone. I wouldn't recommend the 300D. It's essentially a crippled 10D.
"I want good battery life"
Both the 300D and 10D will give you hundreds of shots on a single battery charge which takes a couple of hours. You can also buy a battery grip which attaches to the bottom of the camera and allows you to use two batteries.
"durability is key"
The 300D is fairly tough but it's plastic. The 10D is metal and tougher. The 1D is designed to survive a warzone, literally.
"All of you photographers out there, any suggestions? What did you buy when you started?"
In six months I've gone from a 300D with a couple of cheap lenses to a 1D with approx $8,000 of lenses.
My recommendation, assuming you don't want to go for the 1D which is the best camera ever made, is to get a 10D with a 28-135 Image Stabilizer lens. That will cost you less than $2,000. You will almost certainly want to buy more lenses over time but you'll be happy with the 10D for several years.
There is talk of a 10D replacement within the year but considering the mess Canon has made of the 1D Mk II my advice would be to buy what's right for you now rather than wait for "the next big thing" that may or may not be any good.
Now you need someone to give you the same run-down on Nikon gear. Don't let anyone tell you that Canon or Nikon is considerably better than the other. Both have strengths and weaknesses.
Briefly...
Canon's strengths: Better telephone lenses, slightly better image quality, good resale value, usually brings next-gen tech out a good six months before other manufacturers, good support, lenses are slightly cheaper.
Nikon's strengths: Reputedly better wide lenses, better flash system, high-end cameras are cheaper than Canon's high-end offerings.
Canon cameras are generally used by fashion and sports photographers and more of these are switching to Canon every day.
Nikon cameras are generally used by photojournalists but Canon is becoming much more prevalent in this area nowadays.
If you have any specific questions on Canon gear then feel free to post them in a reply to this comment and I'll answer if I can.
When you are looking at "reviews," don't pay any attention to the ones that have nothing bad to say about the product. This is your first indication of a vendor-sponsored review. Even with the best product, everyone (except the mfgr's marketing dept.) will find something they don't like about it, due to individual tastes and experiences.
What I like about Digital Photography Review is that their reviews are comprehensive, they do repeatable laboratory tests using industry standards (in addition to subjective field testing), and they don't accept payments or gifts from manufacturers.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.