Advice on dslr equipment

[slim_boy_fat]

Has your phone got an optical viewfinder? I would find it pretty hard to manage with just an LCD in bright sunlight.

a) No, and b) got it in one. And 'action' shots could be 'interesting too. Good for 'record' shots though, if I were to get serious out would come the Nikon.

As an aside, one of the 35mm lenses I traded was an 'almost' full fish-eye Sigma Oly-fit one - with built-in filters too [not the 'round shot' produced by some of them]. You had be careful not to include your feet in the shot, be aware of 'gimicky' stuff, verticals etc, but.......

 

[Robotstar5]

Mrs Robo wanted to move up to an SLR and after trying a few. settled on a Panasonic FZ72 I must say she gets some impressive results from it.

 

[GW8IZR]

a) No, and b) got it in one. And 'action' shots could be 'interesting too. Good for 'record' shots though, if I were to get serious out would come the Nikon.

Thats the thing, shutter lag is virtually zero, fast f1.8 lens, starts at 28mm (equiv 35mm format) its still f2.8 at 140mm (equiv ) and has IS, camera raw, full manual etc, it goes on and on.. but its just a compact toy :-) My Canon G15 is years old now and its been up dozens of mountains in the world and used at -45c without complaint, charge it every six months or so. A friend in Hungary bought the later version and promptly got shut of his Canon DSLR but he wouldn't have done that if he had a proper one (Nikon) ;-) The G15 has a small sensor and for some thats a limitation.

 

[Kayos]

Has your phone got an optical viewfinder? I would find it pretty hard to manage with just an LCD in bright sunlight.

Often people read compact and think its a toy but far from it.

Only thing I miss with the eos m is the viewfinder but running magic lantern gives me enough features to make up for it, focus peaking means I can point in the general direction of a shot and get decent results in sunlight

 

[slim_boy_fat]

at -45c without complaint

You couldn't subject me to that without complaint!!

 

[GW8IZR]

You couldn't subject me to that without complaint!!

It's a nuisance climbing open towers at that temperature, it saps the energy very quickly. Working time on connectors for me without gloves was minutes. The riggers with me were more used to it and lasted longer. Very dry though which makes it bearable.

 

[GW8IZR]

I suppose my view is down to when I learned about photography - the choice was pretty much nasty point and shoot compact or full SLR (or TLR if you fancied a bit of 120 action )

I understand and agree, I loved my old Halina Paulette and a low disposable income taught me not to waste frames. To some extent thats why I'm stuck in the past with PS, of course I use it but I very often look at stuff and think, yeah photoshopped, not a real picture.. as I said stuck in the past.

Anyway lots of good advice to digest in the thread, interesting from a died in the wool Nikon clunker here - everyone suggesting Canon or others, not one recommendation for a Nikon DSLR. Mine is very old now but I like the way my lenses from the F1 and later the F90 still fit the DSLR - I read the specs od the entry level Nikons today and they are better than my old semi pro thing, I suppose technology moves on.

 

[Parm]

After Uni I did my city and guilds levels 1,2and 3 in photography.

Advice from the teachers was to get a half decent camera and Learn how to use shutter speed and aperture correctly while at the same time learning about composition etc

Now days it's much easier / cheaper to get decent second hand kit.

Basic Photography by Micheal Lanford is an excellent book that teaches the basics. Well worth the investment for anyone starting out in photography

 

[GW8IZR]

Erm, first reply:

Sorry, what I meant was 'no one saying, get a Nikon xyz, I've got one and its great'

Most have Canon and recommend same from personal experience. I've always had Nikon apart from my compact which of course doesn't need to share accessories.

I quite like the Canon interface but its too late in the lifetime acquisition program to change now ... and I like the clunk :-)

 

[Kayos]

I never gelled with Nikon, Tried many and varied before I bought the 550, if I did it again I'd probably buy a Samsung mirror less

 

[GW8IZR]

I never gelled with Nikon, Tried many and varied before I bought the 550, if I did it again I'd probably buy a Samsung mirror less

That's it, to change mid stream is a significant decision, mainly financial as the user interface can be learned of course.

 

[Rudi McAnichal]

To get a really good photo you need to be in the right place, in the right light, and compose the picture well, and you can learn about those by practising with any old camera. May be best to buy something fairly cheap, take loads of pictures in the first few months, and decide where the interests lie, before making any major investment.

Not sure what sort of photography the OP is thinking of. To my mind, bridge cameras have a lot of merit for holiday use (no faffing around changing lenses, little risk of dust getting in, not especially attractive to snatch thieves) or taking family snaps, etc. But there may be other priorities, for example a fast focussing camera is desirable for wildlife or motor sports.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

We bought a CF to SD XC adapter, works perfectly and has a 32 or 64GB card in...

Was it horrendously expensive [in relative terms]? Link? I have them for different smaller sizes but wasn't even aware the CF size existed [I seldom use the Nikon as said earlier ]

 

[GW8IZR]

@slim_boy_fat

No, seems to work fine and less than £15 Works fine with the 350D

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SD-SDHC-S...450396?hash=item3af1e576dc:g:keoAAOSwwGdZw5YH

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SD-to-CF-...726539?hash=item4abf0aa80b:g:feEAAMXQ0pNRoHK- << Think this is the one I bought...

They do work but you might find the write times a bit slow if you want or need to take lots of frames very quickly especially with big file sizes.

 

[mike os]

Canon or nikon. ... For all intents they are identical, I prefer nikon solely because the bodies fit my hands better than Canon, technology wise there is nothing to chose, sane goes for glass

 

[GW8IZR]

For the extra geeky people, who do have/go for a 350d:

That could be an issue sometimes, if like me you choose to shoot raw - the 350d (and the 400 I believe) store "large jpeg" simultaneously with raw which is a fair amount of data to bung on a card.

It does have a buffer, but it'll slow down consecutive frame capture - probably at the most inopportune moment

I'm a long way behind here but even back when CF was popular it was fairly slow, I tried to set the Nikon to write the raw to SD and the jpeg copy to an older CF and it was the CF that slowed things down, now I just have two SD cards in there and (correct me if I'm wrong) using type UHS which seems to be class 10 I can't say the cards slow down the process at all.

I was always in awe of a local guy who does landscape stuff of the sea cliffs, he'd stand about for ages then take just one shot. Compare that to the tourists with their machine guns ;-)

 

[Kayos]

People remark that I don't take many shots, I like to think it's because I plan it and take my time as well

 

[Burdekin]

My first SLR was a Nikon FM2, fantastic camera. It's not digital but it was a great camera as it's manual and therefore ideal for a learner and also more experienced photographers. I'd recommend for a first DSLR getting a manual camera and excellent build quality. Don't worry too much about megapixels, anything over 6 is fine. She will learn with a manual camera all she needs to, later on she can get ones with more features but if you get her a quality well built manual DSLR to start with she will always have that camera even if she does upgrade to more fancy ones later on.

 

[Burdekin]

It's not a DSLR but I bought my wife a Fuji X100 when they first came out, she takes some amazing photos with it, great wee camera.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Eek....rumours of a 7D mkiii coming out next year....I'd better start saving.