Advice

[Oli-G]

Hey all,

Looking to purchase my first DSLR.

Budget: $800-1100AUD for the body I guess.

Basically I want something that I can handle great, sharp monotone portraiture stuff under low light, and also get some great rich landscape shots for our trip to Europe this August (I'm allowing a few months to 'learn the art' so to speak). Will also be used for band photography, both outdoors and in.

I'd like to keep the total spend around/under $1800AUD.

I've been looking at Nikon D70, D90, Canon 450D, 40D. There's great price variance across those, and I know people have been plenty happy with D70, for example. I'm wondering if getting a D70/450D and a very solid couple of lenses is the way to go, if the differences in low-light sensor sensitivity is not astronomically varied.

I'm anticipating picking up one of the workhorse 50mm 1.8 lenses, and have heard great things about Canons 17-55 F2.8IS under low light conditions, which might also cover the scenery side of things.

Worth stretching the budget, or are there any examples/suggestions anyone can give? I'd like to get a bit of longevity out of it.

Cheers

[Rooz]

d70 is quite old. i think you may mean d60 ?? anyways....canons 17-55IS is a very nice lens. it also runs at around the $1600 mark on its own. lol

for your budget you;re gonna struggle a little to fit everything in you want. take a look at the new d5000, (flip screen, movie mode), just released. it has the same sensor as the d90 so its performance will be excellent. with an 18-105VR lens its around the $1800 mark.

make sure whatever you buy, you try first. as in feel it out. if you dont mind the way rebels feel then they are a very cheap and competent alternative. the new 500d canon runs at around the 1800 mark with a twin lens kit, (18-55IS + 55-250IS), thats alot of bang for buck.

[K1W1]

I'll sell you my old D50 for Aus$1100.00 :)
Otherwise what Rooz said

[Oli-G]

Cheers guys! Totally understood now, about the price vs flexibility thing...

Well we had a feel of the units mentioned, and yeah the Canon came out on top. Whilst the Nikon sensor gets a better wrap on paper it didn't quite nudge out the 40D for us, and yeah we plugged $1700 into the body, a 50mm 1.8 lense, and all the peripheral gear, and have had a lot of fun with it.

Suffice to say, budget went out the window... and I now want to throw $1-1.5k into an extra lense/lenses for other stuff.

The 50mm has been great for moderately lit environments, but I want a lense that will be perfect for concert photography (small-mid size venues, closeup group shots and wide shots of band/crowd), as well as potentially low-light scenery for the euro trip. I think that the best option might be a wide-angle, to get the most out of the scenery, and I also love the wide-angle results for concert photography, so it would kinda be win-win.

Is anyone able to suggest a lense in the $1-1.5k range that they've had personal experience with?

Thus far, these are candidates I'm looking at:

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM

I guess they're quite different, but I know of a couple of photographers that swear by them for closeish concert photography.

[Oli-G]

Btw Rooz, checked out your flickr. Stunning stuff, particularly like the insect work!

[worthmining]

Hi, Rooz, could you comment on my trouble of selecting my first dslr? Thanks

http://www.dcresource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=381342&postcount=11
http://www.dcresource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=381341&postcount=95
http://www.dcresource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=381343&postcount=22

My main target will be kid dancing on stage in door, otherwise some indoor outdoor portrait with occasional landscape etc. So I guess low light, high ISO are important, telepho lense, burst rate and AF speed are important factors?

After taking picture on both 500D and D5000, I think I like D5000 mostly for its IQ and the twist lcd, although d5000 has a couple of minor problems (burst buffer and underexposure in auto). As a novice dslr user, I took picture without any tweak using T, V, P and auto and personally I feel 500D picture is dull sometime with brown reddish (WB problem?). D5000 gives a way sharper and colorful picture but underexposure most of time, there is a button (the only direct access) however on d5000 allowing easily change compensation but not in auto or scene mode. Another big difference is 500D has more buttons than D5000 that has takes a menu approach to change something such as ISO. So d5000 is very familiar with people like me who came from compact DC world want to point and shoot, but will it be soon that I'll find those buttons more convenience, or really is it necessary only to pro? From Canon 500D level then, a little extra money will bring me the flawless D90, which is more pro oriented but a lot heavier. Of course 50D's price is not far from there but I should stop here as 50D's size and weight makes me re-consider the reasoning of my dslr all over again.

Meantime seem everyone in this forum voted for D90 over D5000, so are some of friends of mine, which makes me wonder? If it's the ergonomic or grip then I really don't care. My theory is that the probability of carrying a camera is at least equally important as other factors in choosing a camera. Because if I grow laziness and don't have the camera in my hand when I need it, then it doesn't matter how good this camera is. so I value a lot to the weight and size based on my past experience. However, there will be event that I know I'll be carry a decent dslr for sure as the top priority in that case is the best picture than anything, which is the first reason why I came to thinking about a dslr. I also don't care much about the dslr's video at this point.. I have a pricey sony HD camcorder which is compact and good quality that I don't intend to replace unless of course Canon or Nikon start to make anything equivalent to Panasonic GH1 sometime in the future. In addition, I figure I will not be doing a lot photoshop kind post processing, so will take jpeg only, family album is all I will ever need not any art contest etc.

Hope my frustration as a first time dslr buyer has not annoy you, it's just that after read hundred of reviews and forums, I found my self still can't decide, this is totally unexpected and unique in my shopping experience.


d70 is quite old. i think you may mean d60 ?? anyways....canons 17-55IS is a very nice lens. it also runs at around the $1600 mark on its own. lol

for your budget you;re gonna struggle a little to fit everything in you want. take a look at the new d5000, (flip screen, movie mode), just released. it has the same sensor as the d90 so its performance will be excellent. with an 18-105VR lens its around the $1800 mark.

make sure whatever you buy, you try first. as in feel it out. if you dont mind the way rebels feel then they are a very cheap and competent alternative. the new 500d canon runs at around the 1800 mark with a twin lens kit, (18-55IS + 55-250IS), thats alot of bang for buck.