DSLR for Gardener

[sally]

My husband and I both want to upgrade to dslr. I'm going to buy him one for Xmas, in the 500 - 1200$ range.
Size isn't particularly important.
He takes alot of supercloseups, e.g. insects, flowers etc., and he likes a quick focus and of course super sharp image. Also speedy shutter lag time.
Image quality is very important: He does slide presentations and we may be using some images in calendars.
Manual controls are key, though we can be lazy too.
We would like to be able to make large prints if we choose.
I like to take low light shots but it's less important for his purposes.
Not a ton of action shots except maybe our dogs.
We've had Olympus and Canon digitals, been happy so far but open to whatever seems best.
I've been looking at the Nikons D50 and D80, wondering if he needs all the wonderfulness of the 80 (I'm sure he'd think he does but he is basically an amateur who just takes alot of reasonably good pictures, don't tell him I said so).
I do more fiddling about with images and am definitely the techie in the house, (e.g. I still download his pictures for him and he rarely cracks a user's manual), so ease of use is key, I guess.
TIA for your advice.

[Clyde]

If you had emphasized shooting in low light, folks here might have pointed you towards a canon. As it is, you should both be happy with the D50.

The one requirement that might tug your kit out of your budget is the macro shooting. However, in reasonably good light you might be happy with something like the sigma 70-300 (http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=14895609/ut=47d8dbe7316a22a7) APO. This isn't considered a "true" macro lens, since it doesn't allow full 1:1 magnification. However, at 1:2 it is pretty good, and people like aparmely here have got good results from it. Sigma makes different versions of the 70-300. The APO DG is generally thought of as a bargain, while cheaper macro II versions aren't accorded the same respect.

So, I recommend the D50 with the kit lens and the sigma 70-300 for both telephoto and macro uses.


Keep in mind that this is a relatively low budget. Others might recommend a more specialized lens, like the tamron 90 (http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=8096695/search=tamron+90/ut=47d8dbe7174c8acd). This lens is both more expensive and less flexible. It is a prime, so it doesn't zoom. That means you can't use it to magnify your more distant subjects outdoors. Howevr, it does focus on subjects much closer to the camera than the sigma zoom lens, so it magnifies small objects more.

For more information than you may want, check out the Lens Buyers Guide (http://www.dcresource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8089) here.

Good luck...

Clyde