Digital SLR - What to buy

Wondering if you guys can give me some advice in relation to a Digital SLR. I am looking to buy one as i am interested in getting into photography as a hobby.

I already have a point and shoot however would like to also buy a SLR for the extras that they can provide. At this stage my budget looks like it would be around the cost of a Canon EOS 400D, which i have been looking at. Wondering if you guys could talk me into or out of buying one and also what would be best for my purposes.

i had a search on the forums and couldn't find anything on this topic

What you should buy depends on what type of photography you are interested in. For example, if you plan to focus (literally) on wildlife or sports action, you need to make sure you have a relatively fast autofocus system, and possibly a relatively fast motor drive so you can take multiple shots quickly. This is true especially if you want to photograph birds and/or football (soccer) players. If you are not planning to shoot wildlife, the autofocus capabilities of the camera don't matter as much. For instance, if you take only landscape photos, autofocus doesn't matter as much in most circumstances.


Are you planning to use the camera outdoors in potentially rugged situations? If so, you need a relatively sturdy camera made from tougher materials-- less plastic and more metal and composite materials.

How large do you plan to make your prints? If you only plan to make 8x10 inch prints, you don't need more than 6 or 8 megapixels.

Gotta get back to work. More later, if I have time.

For the money, at least in my price range,
I am saving up for the Canon 30D.
Might get one of the Ebay deals with a couple lens to start out with for about $1600.

Though, I am waiting to see what new releases Canon has this year before I buy.
That way either the 30D will come down in price, or there will be a "40D" or something new that I might want more.

~John

jtice said:

Though, I am waiting to see what new releases Canon has this year before I buy.

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On that note, if they announce anything, it will be within the next few days, otherwise, probably not until August or September.

They usually do big product announcements in either February-March (for the PMA show) or August-September (for the Photokina show) - and they've already done an announcement for the 1D Mark III and their consumer-cam updates, so I'm thinking you've got six months before anything's changing. :shrug:

john

Oh, and I have a Rebel XTi, and love it. I've had every Rebel, and enjoy their small size factor (which some people think is a downfall). I'm a fan of saving money on the camera body, and putting it into a nice lens or two. Obviously, if you can find room in your budget, get the 30D like John is looking at, but ONLY if you have enough money to get a GOOD LENS!!!! I can't stress that enough - you're not taking advantage of the camera if you don't have a lens to match it!

john

mightysparrow said:

How large do you plan to make your prints? If you only plan to make 8x10 inch prints, you don't need more than 6 or 8 megapixels.

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6 megapixels at 8x10 print would translate to a roughly 300 dpi print which would be maximum quality. In my experience, I have made some impressive 6 megapixel prints @ 150 dpi to a size of 13 x 19. I wouldn't go any bigger than this at 6 megapixels.

8 megapixels is not much different than 6. If you want to have visible incremental improvement over 8MP, I'd go 10MP and up. At 10MP, you can do the maximum quality print (300dpi) at a size of 13x19 or 26x17 @ 150 dpi. That would be impressive!

If you were to make large prints, the DSLR is the way to go. Even though some point-and-shoots claim 8 to 10 megapixels, the digital sensors are so danged small and the quality of the optics is so poor that the effective image resolution is much lower than most people realize.

Make sure when you go DSLR, you invest your money into a good lens and a external flash with TTL capabilities. A good general purpose zoom range would be 17-55mm (28 to 70mm on a 35mm equivalent basis). If you can afford it, get some nice fast 2.8 glass. Have fun!

WP

WAVE_PARTICLE said:

6 megapixels at 8x10 print would translate to a roughly 300 dpi print which would be maximum quality. In my experience, I have made some impressive 6 megapixel prints @ 150 dpi to a size of 13 x 19. I wouldn't go any bigger than this at 6 megapixels.

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Good point, WP - the megapixel thing is definitely getting to be a moot point, unless you want to make wide-format prints ($$$ if you don't have the capabilities to do so on your own), or for some reason, need to crop photos often :green:

I've done some fine-art prints on my Epson 4000 with some old 6mp photographs at 14"x21" that looked great - it helps to have a grasp on sharpening techniques in Photoshop (I use a duplicated "High Pass" layer @ 10 pixel radius, with "Hard Light" blending mode selected, and a layer transparency of around 10-40%, depending on the image - it yields better results than Unsharp Mask, in my tests).

john

WAVE_PARTICLE said:

Even though some point-and-shoots claim 8 to 10 megapixels, the digital sensors are so danged small and the quality of the optics is so poor that the effective image resolution is much lower than most people realize.

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AGREED! Marketing at its finest. More more more!!! :shakehead

The Rebel XTi is a good choice. Most SLR's in that price range are very good nowadays. Compare to when my brother bought a D30 (not 30D) for $3300 to get 3 MP, and 3 lousy focus points...

Make sure to budget enough money for good lenses. Actually, I'd recommend saving a couple hundred on the body and getting the one-generation-old 8 MP Rebel XT (which is still very good) and putting the money into better lenses, which will depreciate much less over time, especially if you buy first-party (e.g. Canon) brand.

If you really want to research camera comparisons, here's a couple links:

Canon Rebel XTi vs Nikon D80
Canon 30D vs Canon Rebel XTi
Nikon D80 vs Nikon D40

Finally, if you're looking to make beamshot pictures, you probably want a tripod. Ballheads and such are a whole 'nother discussion.

glyphin said:

Finally, if you're looking to make beamshot pictures, you probably want a tripod.

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Great point glyphin! A nice sturdy tripod with a versitile yet sturdy head (and a cable release to boot) makes a world of difference. I use a Manfrotto tripod and head... I think WP can vouch for Gitzo brand as being "the goods" as well.

john

jch79 said:

I can't stress that enough - you're not taking advantage of the camera if you don't have a lens to match it!

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Absolutely!

WAVE_PARTICLE said:

Make sure when you go DSLR, you invest your money into a good lens...

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Awesome advice from a smart man!

glyphin said:

Make sure to budget enough money for good lenses.

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Great advice!

Did I just quote myself? :thinking:


John, you seem to know your post-processing techniques... :thumbsup:
I've always been an unsharp mask kinda guy. I'm going to try yours out.


:thumbsup: WP

WAVE_PARTICLE said:

Did I just quote myself? :thinking:

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WAVE_PARTICLE said:

I've always been an unsharp mask kinda guy. I'm going to try yours out.

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I've done full-sized comparison prints using both techniques, and prefer the look of high-pass... would anyone notice the difference unless they were holding the two next to eachother... :shrug: - but hey, as we all know, that's photography! :laughing:

glyphin said:

Actually, I'd recommend saving a couple hundred on the body and getting the one-generation-old 8 MP Rebel XT (which is still very good) and putting the money into better lenses, which will depreciate much less over time, especially if you buy first-party (e.g. Canon) brand.

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Yep, Canon Rebel XT (or XTi or whatever the new 400 model is) would be a great buy. I have the "old" XT and got it with the kit lens about 20 months ago. Kit lens is barely OK - my best pictures are coming now that I have a "real" lens on my Canon: 24-105/F4 "L" lens. Yes, the lens was more expensive than the body. Yes, it was worth it :rock:

So, like others said above, don't concentrate much on anything above 8Meg - spend your money on a "good" lens

Will

I also highly recommend the Rebel XT or XTi. I have had an XT for almost a year, and have been extremely pleased with it. If you can find any XT models left on the shelf, you can probably score a good deal.

jch79 said:

... I think WP can vouch for Gitzo brand as being "the goods" as well.

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I'm really happy with the Gitzo pod I got. Quality tripods. I scored an Arca-Swiss B1 head a couple of years back.....if you can lay your hands on one of these babies....then you need not look any further (although, if you are not going to be using a lot of heavy glass, then you can probably save your money). But yeah.....for low light shots and macro work, a tripod is essential.

WP

If you haven't settled on Canon yet maybe take a look at the Pentax K10D and K100D. They both have in-body shake reduction (via moving the sensor). This gives you SR on all lenses not just on expensive IS (Canon's name) lenses. Plus it will turn a 50mm f1.4 lens into a stabilized lens something that IS can't (yet?) do.

Pentax also has a nice selection of prime (i.e. non-zoom) lenses that some people prefer for image quality or size to carry around. They don't have as wide a selection of lenses as Canon or Nikon since they are a smaller company but all old Pentax lenses will work including manual focus ones (in manual focus naturally) and even screwmount lenses (with a $20 adapter).

Greg

I would personally suggest getting a cheap second hand Nikon D70/D70s, and invest in a the Nikon 18-200mm AF-S VR lens if you can find one. The recent release of the D80 and D40 has resulted in a large supply of near-mint second hand D70/D70s bodies.

If you must get a new DSLR, I've heard good things about the Nikon D40 as well. Depending on the size of your hands, the smaller size of the Canon 350D/400D might or might not be an advantage. IMHO there was no comparison between the build quality of of my D70 and my friend's 350D, and I found the larger size of the D70 more comfortable.

If you go Canon, their f/1.8 50mm lens is a great value. It takes super pictures and you have more opportunity to use natural light with the quicker lens.

wow, great reply thanks. I haven't really settled on anything at this stage and i am also still in the process of extracting the funds from the boss. I have read before that the Canon is a little on the small side for the big handed persons, not sure if thats me or not.

As for the photography that i will get into i am not really sure, probably mostly scenery, cars and people not a great deal of sports although it would still be nice to have that option to use it if the situation presented itself.

I looked at the D40, but was a little put of with it only being 6MP.

Don't worry about the 6MP. I wouldn't get the D40 though because of its limitation to AF-S lenses. If you want a low-end Nikon, get a D50 or D70. The D70's features are a bit more serious but the D50 is newer and has some technological improvements. You can get good deals on either one.

The main thing you are paying for is the (CCD or CMOS) sensor. Bigger is better, but expensive. All these low and midrange DSLR's have approx 15x22mm sensors, about half the area of a traditional 24x36mm SLR film frame. Megapixels is how many little squares the sensor is divided into, like cutting a pizza into slices. The marketroids have made people think cutting a 16 inch pizza into 12 slices is somehow getting you more pizza than cutting it into 8 slices. There is some usefulness to more slices but really what's worth paying for is making the pizza BIGGER. Therefore I would not spend 1500 dollars on a 15x22mm sensor digicam like a Canon 30D, Nikon D80/D200, etc. (Special exception: D200 makes some sense if you already own Nikon manual focus equipment like I do). I'd either get a 15x22mm sensor camera in the under-700 range (Nikon D50/D70, Canon 400D) or else I'd get a 24x36mm (aka "full frame" or FF) camera (right now that basically means the Canon 5D at $2500-ish, or the professional EOS-1DS mk II at $5000+). Nikon right now doesn't make an FF camera but I'm waiting for them to come out with one.

FF sensors are inherently very expensive so I don't think we'll see an under-1000 dollar FF camera in the near future, but maybe they will reach the 30D/D200 price level within a year or so. I'm basically holding out for that.