hey guys, i wanna buy a D SLR for christmas, but im not sure what brand i should get and what price range i should be looking at. guys at the stores are no help. i've seen them range from 600- $1600. people have been telling me canon or nikkon or sony. what should i look for in a camera and what should i be looking to spend?

thanks for your input

 

I think i'm going for a Canon Xsi for Boxing day. But in the same boat as you.

 

I have a nikon d60 =) its pretty good.. but im not pro so i dunno what your really looking for..but i think d60 is more than eunff for someone just looking to shoot a couple of pictures here and there..
I got mine for like 550+tax at bestbuy.

 

I think you should buy a camera which you'll use and suits your lifestyle, the type of photographs you plan to take and the quality. If your plan is to take pictures of passed out friends at parties and post them on facebook then a cellphone would work best. If photography is a hobby then you wouldn't be asking, you'd be telling

My neighbour has a really nice Olympus pocket cam which is small, light, 10Mpix zoom AND water and shock proof so you can take underwater pics and you can take it on mountain bike adventures without worrying about getting sand in it or dropping it.

So that is my advice. Find one you can live with. It doesn't take good pictures if it's at home because you can't take it with you where you go. With a DSLR you need to be prepared to spend $$$ on lenses since that's the whole point. If you aren't going to go on photo shoot sessions or do anything complex then it's a bad choice regardless of how fantastic it is.

 

[QUOTE=fenixv8,Dec 13 2008, 05:04 PM] hey guys, i wanna buy a D SLR for christmas, but im not sure what brand i should get and what price range i should be looking at. guys at the stores are no help.

 

borbor thank you so much for your information, helped me out a lot.


cthree i dunno why your would buy a DSLR to take picks of your drunk passed out friends, but what ever floats your boat.

 

Great write up borbor.

Despite all the naysayers out there, I decided to go with the Sony system (A200). It really comes down to what you're most comfortable with because at the end of the day a camera is only as good as its photographer.

Start off with an inexpensive body to see how you like it first. As soon as the DSLR bug hit me I started to invest in some decent glass and now am ready to upgrade to an A700 (A900 too rich for my blood )

But that also leads to another great point with regards to building your lens collection. Don't just invest in good glass, but also invest in full frame glass. It is inevitable that full frame camera's will be attainable for the entry level - intermediate photographer soon.

Some key advantages that sold me on the Alpha system were:
- In camera IS (Never have to worry about shelling out more for IS lenses)
- Zeiss Glass
- G Glass
- Affordable starter kit. (especially now with Best Buy selling it for $569 with a 18-70mm + 75-300mm Lense for the A300)

 

yea great deals to be had on DSLR's right now especially that sony and canon xsi.

I have the XTi and it's pretty decent. Not a problem yet with it. I own only the kit lense 18-55mm but have access to a 100-400L and 28-135 USM IS whenever I want. I use the 18-55 most though. I do have the BG-E3 grip for it though which makes it about twice the size and battery power.

$500 recommendation to get you into the DSLR scene.....
I have heard many recommendations saying just to buy a good second hand xsi/xti/10D and put the also inexpensive 50mm prime 1.8 lense. This forces you to take pictures from different angles and distances because there is no zoom. Apparently this improves a photographers composition.

fenix - if you want to play around with a DSLR to see if you like it first, you can take some shots with mine for a few days or whatever. You really just don't have a clue as to what suits your needs best until you start playing around with the camera and its features. The menu's and layout for one will just come naturally.

 

Forcing yourself to use prime lens only REALLY makes you think about composition. That's an exercise I go through almost bi-monthly.

 

the nifty fifty is on my xmas list cyril