new camera for a new cameraman..

[mawsy]

First off, hello to all. My name is Brenton, I live in Australia and i have just recently decided to upgrade from the little point and shoot to a DSLR. i am a fairly active sort of guy, i enjoy sports particularly snowboarding, surfing and footy. Anyhow just looking for some recommendations for cameras, i have sort of looked around myself and am leaning towards the canon 450D but just incase there is one out there i have overlooked i thought i'd post up a thread anyhow, so in advance cheers for an help you can offer.

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible.
$1000-$1500

Size

* What size camera are you looking for? Or does size not matter at all to you?
Not to important, just looking for something versatile

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?
just looking to upgrade from the point and shoot so anything above 10MP will be good.

* What optical zoom will you need? (None, Standard = 3x-4x, Ultrazoom = 10x-12x, Other - Specify)
i think standard should be alright, but longer zoom could come in handy for sports..

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)
8/10

Do you care for manual controls?
yes, i am quite keen to learn how to properly use a proper camera

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
haha taking photos.. kidding, mostly outdoor stuff, occasionally the odd photo of people and some night shots aswell

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?
probably not

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos?
mainly outdoor but occasionally indoor or night photos

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?
yes, footy games and motorsport will be fairly high up, but also snowboarding and surfing..

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?
canon and Sony have taken my interest

Are there particular models you already have in mind?
Canon 450D and the Sony A330

(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD)
image stabilization is a must, my hands are about as steady as plane landing in a cane field.. however i have read that lenses have IS so thats why i'm leaning towards the canon, even though it doesn't have IS in the body like the sony..

[SpecialK]

Just about any DSLR these days makes decent images. Much of the choice will boil down to the specific features, and if you like the way the camera feels in you hands.

Canon is good choice, as there are many lenses available for it (by Canon and third parties such as Tamron and Sigma) which you will probably eventually want to get to satisfy all your requirements.

"Sports" generally means something in the 70-200 f2.8 range, which will cost $800 or more. You can get the f4 version for a couple hundred less, or the 55-200 or 55-250 (?) f4-5.6 at about 1/3 the cost, which will do most of the casual sports shots.

Low light or night-time generally means a large maximum aperture such as f1.4, f1.8 in the lens (and/or a tripod). A "nifty fifty" is a 50mm lens with just such a large aperture, which is fairly reasonably priced at $150 or so. Many people recommend them, but I don't necessarily. I'd likely get a 30mm or thereabouts which makes more sense for indoors use as it is a wider angle, which is handy in confined areas.

The 50mm could be used as a portrait lens if you are into that.

I don't recommend the 18-55mm "kit lens" that comes with any camera, though they are pretty inexpensive to get one with your camera body. You will eventually want to replace it sooner or later, so I vote "now" :-) There are many lenses in the 18-50 or 17-70 range that will provide at least as good an image as the best image of the kit lens, but will normally be f2.8 through out the whole range, thereby gaining 2 stops in shutter speed (or lower ISO) at the long end, and a tad at the wide end as well.

If you get the kit lens and the lower cost telephoto, that will provide the basics as you determine what focal length ranges work best. Then start upgrading lens if needed.

I think you can never go too wide, so you might want to look at the Sigma 10-20mm (old or new) someday, which seems to be very popular for the Canon/UWA answer.


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[mawsy]

much appreciated mate, thanks for your time.