Recommend a good Digital SLR camera for a beginner

[Konovalov]

As per the title of this thread. I am looking to upgrade from my compact point and shoot digital camera to a good beginners digital SLR. Help please.

Can anyone recommend a good digital SLR for use ranging from simple family photos, to F1 and auto racing, and of course air shows?

Where should I be looking to purchase such a camera in the UK? Who are the best retailers/e-tailers that I should consider purchasing from?

This is one area that I am pretty much cluesless as to where to start.

[Skybird]

I repeatedly saw my own model available per second hand. It's a bit older, but still does all that I want it to: a Canon Powershot A75. dont' know what is availabole today, but I would happily buy everything that compares to it's specs and it'S quality.

Don't chase megapixel. For usual and standard photos, even 3 megapix alraedy is sufficent. I did prints of such pictures up to 30x20 cm - and no pixels visible. If you can get more megapix for free, okay, but i wouldn't spend money on getting more as long as I do no wish to go for professional use and greater printouts.

Recent models of the Canon Powershot line all seem to be reasonable quality. As is Canon in general, not only Digicams. Beside the Powershot, I use Canon printer, scanner and SLR as well. All equipement delivers top notch quality and has superb ergonomics. Good brand.

[P_Funk]

Well I don't know jack about film really. But my brother is pretty big into it and one thing he told me when he got his new camera a few months back is that its better to get a manual camera to begin with than to jump straight to digital. The things you learn with a high quality traditional camera are worth it. Digital robs you of some of learning some of the skills of photography. I guess you could compare it to never learning to drive stick shift and just driving with automatic.

But don't let me ruin your dream.:p

[Skybird]

That is true what your brother says, however, there are differences between both technologies, concenring contrasts for example, focussing on horizons, and reliability of autofocus, and these you do not learn by analogue photography when you want to do digital. As I said, I have both types of cameras, and I needed to relearn some things for the small digital camera.

And a good place for reviews and information is this (used it myself back then):
http://www.steves-digicams.com/

This is what Ive got - great range of options and the picture quality's great

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/sp510.html

The optical zoom range is paticularily impressive and if you want to manually set things up then youve got most of the options of an old manual SLR , Ive always used and bought Olympus cameras, (Started with an OM-10 SLR), and this one continues the build quality ive gotten used to.

[fatty]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

As per the title of this thread. I am looking to upgrade from my compact point and shoot digital camera to a good beginners digital SLR. Help please.

Can anyone recommend a good digital SLR for use ranging from simple family photos, to F1 and auto racing, and of course air shows?

Where should I be looking to purchase such a camera in the UK? Who are the best retailers/e-tailers that I should consider purchasing from?

This is one area that I am pretty much cluesless as to where to start.

Hi Konovalov. As Skybird said, you don't need to go crazy over megapixels. I shoot in 6mp and this generally produces images that are large enough to crop comfortably and still print 8"x10". Cameras are not hard to shop for as the specs are all available to you and - most importantly - so are sample images. Set a price range for yourself and check the SLRs in that range. Go over the samples with a fine tooth comb; how are the images for noise, fringing, contrast, etc. etc. Warranty, weight, and battery life are of course also good things to consider.

There aren't really any 'bad' dSLRs out there, but I recommend Canon's Digital Rebel XT, or maybe the Pentax K100D. Both are good budget cameras and come with a half-decent lens. If you are looking to do air shows you should be prepared to sink some money into this as most 'kit' lenses (included with the camera body) - usually cover a range of 18-55mm; most recommend at least a 300mm lens for air shows.

EDIT: I don't know about retailers in the UK, unfortunately, but lots of pros I have spoken to have had great luck with eBay. I am a bit of a luddite in that regard and have not tried it, but maybe next time.

EDIT2: May I also recommend that before you make a purchase you familiarize yourself with some of the concepts and jargon of photography. There are lots of sites and books out there with good glossaries about what all these terms mean. When you know what the heck a depth of field is, or an ISO speed, or the relation between shutter speed and f/stop (things you typically need not concern yourself with over a point and shoot), you can compare cameras a lot better!

[tycho102]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

I am looking to upgrade from my compact point and shoot digital camera to a good beginners digital SLR.

This is one area that I am pretty much cluesless as to where to start.

1. The first thing you need to understand is that your lenses are far, far, far, far, far more important than the actual camera body. If you buy good lenses, any camera will turn out decent.

2. Secondary after the lenses, you need to understand the "cropping" factor. A frame of 35mm film is about 35mm across, 24mm vertical. The typical CCD sensor is 24 across, 16 vertical. This is like taking a large picture and "cropping" out just the center portion. You're not enlarging it, you're not changing that center portion digitally. You're just cutting out around that section, meaning that everything else around it is missing.

This means that when you buy a lens, they are going to be marked for standard 35mm film and you'll need to adjust for it. The human eye (depending on which article you read) "sees" at about a 50mm lens. This translates into a 35mm lens when you're using a 24x16mm CCD sensor.

Don't worry if you don't understand this issue immediately. It will make itself known as you use the camera and you will learn to adjust for it. What I'm saying is don't run out and buy lenses which "overlap" in their functionality because you'll be wasting money when you do it. You need to spend some time researching the lenses and understand what to use when, before you start buying lots of different lenses.

3. There are four main categories. "Macro", "wide-angle", "near-field", "telephoto". Macro is for when you want to take extreme closeups from ~5cm away. Wide-angle is when you want to capture as much.....area in the photo that you possibly can, such as when you're trying to take a picture of a bunch of people standing together -- portraits. Near-field is usually some kind of limited telephoto lens and is the most "general purpose" lens that you can have. Something like a 18x85mm lens would fit this category. Telephoto is generally anything above 100mm, but don't bother with a telephoto lens less than 200mm focal.

4. There are "fast" lenses and "slow" ones. I feel these are slightly counter-intuitive descriptions, but they are accurate enough. A fast lens has a lot of light gathering ability, due to a very large aperture. Fast lenses are those huge honking 20kg looking lenses that you see complete psychopaths carring around to sporting events or in secret agent films. Think back to whatever massive lens you've seen in a movie, and that was a "fast" lens. They normally cost out the anus of a baby hippopotamus ($1500-2400). Slow lenses are cheaper than this. Fast lenses give fast exposure times in restricted light conditions. At sunset, if you're trying to capture one of your children running across the soccer field, you're going to need a 1/400 second exposure time (or less, usually less [1/800]) and a "fast" lens will let you do this. A "slow" lens would need 1/200, causing the picture to be blurry. Your compact camera has a "slow" lens of f4 or above at the wide-angle.

5. Good macros start at $400. Same for telephoto. Wide-angles run $200, with image-stabilization available toward $400. Near-field lenses are the ones that you want to take when you're going to be slogging it out in nasty conditions. I keep a few different ones, with one really good one ($400, I.S.) and a couple "bang around" ones ($130).

6. Decent SLR's start at $600. Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji all have different mounts. A Nikon lens won't fit on a Canon, and vice-versa. Look through several different camera bodies and decide on some kind of price range, then start looking at lenses that fit those various cameras. Don't buy anything until you've got both your lenses and camera body picked out.

7. Memory cards are another issue. You'll want a memory card reader to get the thing on your computer. I recommend getting one of the portable hard drives (~40GB) and two or three medium size cards. If one card goes out on you, you'll have a spare, and you can "burn" them off to hard drive as you fill the card.

8. HDR (High Dynamic Range) is the new thing for digitals. They are very nice to take for scenic pictures, especially when you're travelling. Some cameras will do "bracketing" and some won't. You'll need bracketing for HDR, and you'll need to pay the extra ($1000+) to do more than groups of 3 (3 is the minimum for HDR).

9. I have an older Canon Rebel XT (8MP). It's very good. There are certainly better cameras, but it is versatile and the controls are highly functional. I also have a portable hard disk and two 4GB flash cards. I bought the extra battery pack which allows me to use 2 LiON batteries in parallel, or 6-AA NiMH batteries in series.

[DAB]

In acknowledging Tycho's obvious technological knowledge and advantage over me...

... I resorted to asking my kid sister, whose a professional photographer still insisting her negative scanner beats any digital rig.

She uses a Cannon but says if she were buying a Camera this month, she would still probably go for the Sony Alpha 100. Apparently its lenses are top notch, the senser (that interpretes the image) is very sharp. And unlike practically any other Sony Camera, it uses Compact Flash and not Sony's memory sticks.

[Skybird]

I oversaw that you were asking for digital SLR, no compact camera, Konovalov. sorry for my irrelevant comparison to the A75 then. I only have an analogue SLR, an EOS 600. On digital SLRs I can only say: make sure that damn thing isn't to light and to small. Manufacturers have gone crazy on who ncan build the smallest. lightest toy: and all to often picrture quality shows that, for it is easier to blur the shot since the camera does not reasonably fit into your hands. I wish they would build cameras according to the quality they had in the past, a bit bigger, and heavier.

[Takeda Shingen]

If you are coming from point and shoot compacts, then you would probably want to start with Canon's XTi. You can even get it with the kit, which includes a 17-55 mm lens that isn't really awful. The body is 10MP, and is compatible with Canon's line of EF lenses. Actually, it is a good little camera, and even though I have a D-80, the XTi remains my digital of choice because of the good lens selection.

[Konovalov]

Thanks to you all and particularly Tycho, Sky, Tak, DAB and Fatty. This is new territory for me but I have worked my way through some reading after the guidance and info provided here by the reliable Subsim crowd.

Just to clear things up a bit. I am looking to upgrade from my old point and shoot Olympus Mju-410 4 megapixel digital camera which has served me well over the last few years. I am looking to upgrade to a Digital SLR camera which will hopefully last me a good many years. I have set a budget of between £350 and £450 pounds.

So far there are two particular "starter" digial SLR's which have caught my eye. They are the Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi) and the Nikon D40 or the updatedversion being the Nikon D40X. Quite frankly the Nikon D40X doesn't look to really add much over the 6 month older D40 with 10 megapixel instead of 6 which makes no difference to me. And considering that I can pick up a D40 for around £280-300 while the updated D40X is priced over £100 more, the D40 seems better value over the D40X. The Canon seems to be about £30-50 more than the Nikon D40X.

What are peoples thoughts on the Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi) or the Nikon D40/D40X?

Regarding the lense question. The Nikon D40 comes with a AF-S DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II lense in the package and after cashback the price is £270. The slightly improved D40X comes with the same lens as the D40 above and is priced at £400 after cashback. The Canon EOS 400D comes with a EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II lense and after cashback is priced at around £429.

Does it sound like I am on the right track here?

[Takeda Shingen]

I would go with the Canon. Regarding features, the XTi is comparable to the Nikon D80, which is the step-up model from the D40. Essentially, you are getting more bang for your pound, as it were.

Bottom line: Nikons are expensive. In fact, my opinion is that they are akin to Nike sneakers; that is, overpriced. I almost exclusively use Canons. Your money is going to go a lot farther.

[The Avon Lady]

If you need a great digital camera but don't really need the SLR, looking into the Panasonic Lumix line. Check the tech reviews on various websites.

[SmithN23]

I'll throw another vote for the XTI (or 400D as its called in Europe) I got a great deal on it for about 1000 US on ebay and it included 3 lenses, a tripod, a bag, and some other goodies. The camera takes great pictures, but as someone else above said the lenses make a big difference. Here is a review of the camera: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0608/06...0drebelxti.asp.

Edit: if your looking for some tips on shooting this website is a great resource: http://www.pcphotomag.com/

[fatty]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

If you need a great digital camera but don't really need the SLR, looking into the Panasonic Lumix line. Check the tech reviews on various websites.

Great cameras.