Advice wanted on DSLR and lense selection.

My wife has bought me a Fuji s8000 for a early birthday present, And we have decided to save £100 a month towards my DSLR project, So i hope to be able to get something that will last me some years.

Hi Cliffair,

Thanks for the reply.My son bought a 400D from the outlet at the same time, through a second chance offer, and had no problem, but then, his camera worked perfectly from delivery.He did, however, receive another second chance offer about a month later!

Getting back to the original thread, I bought a Minolta Z2 from new because I was not willing to carry around my heavy bag with 300D and lenses.Although lightweight and relatively easy to use,I have been frustrated at times by the Minolta’s limitations, hence the 400D and 28-300mm Sigma. This combination takes up a little more space, but is easy to carry and with much better quality.The idea was to use the 300D with the Sigma 28-300 for general use out and about, saving the 400D to use with the Sigma 50-500 for airshow and wildlife photography, but the 400D is so nice, that it is tending to become over-used.

Phil

Hi Phil,

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with Canon Outlet, Yes looking at the neg feed back it does seem that the issue is the customer service or lack of rather than the faulty goods aspect. I had already been tipped off that thier email was a waist of time hence the phone calls to their Dublin call centre when thier check out web pages refused to play ball.

I may on the face of it been lucky that all went well on the 4 cameras i have bought from them from what you have posted, so yes as with all ebay transactions do your home work. From an ethical point i did not know about the hassels with leaving neg feedback and since Canon are not happy Think ill give them a miss from now on…

Still stand by reconmending 7day shop though never had any problems with them or thier goods..

Once again good luck Duxford Hawk with your quest for a DSLR.

Cheers Cliff

From my experience. I should urge caution with regards to Clifair’s advice re the Canon Outlet store on ebay(run by Digital River).I would never normally advise against a purchase from a particular seller, but in this case I could easily be persuaded!This is in no way an attack on Clifair, as he has clearly had good experiences.
Buying from this seller is like playing Russian roulette;statistically, you stand a great chance of success, but when things go wrong, it is a disaster. If you get a working product, then you are happy and give good feedback;however, if your get a faulty item, the nightmare begins. I cannot criticise their customer service, since that would imply that they actually offer one. They display the rather meaningless Square Trade seal of approval for the quality of their stated policies, but fall well short of these when they are called into play.
My 400D was faulty on delivery, so I contacted them immediately. Their first response is to send you to Canon support in the hope that you will get a repair on this “new” and unused item for which you have to pay the postage!I asked for a refund and it took 13 days for them to collect the camera and a full month(less one day) for the refund to appear on my credit card account.They work at their own pace, ignoring all emails urging them to stick to their stated policies and then wonder why they receive negative feedback,not for the broken product, but for the poor service.
After posting negative feedback, you then get a rather worrying email from Square trade stating that they have been asked by Digital River to ask you to withdraw your feedback or submit to their “independent” arbitration;if you don’t respond, they can have the feedback removed anyway. There is nothing “mutual” about this process and is little short of harassment.Look at the feedbacks(try this excellent tool to help:http://www.toolhaus.org/) and look at the 393 feebacks “mutually” removed.
I have refused to mediate REPEATEDLY, yet still they persist! Digital River did contact me after the intervention of Canon, but the offer of discount from a future purchase was rather pointless in the circumstances.
Canon UK were not impressed by their tactics when I complained and despite their contact with Digital River, things still appear to be poor as I have been contacted by two disgruntled buyers seeking advice from someone who has had problems.
I now have a nice 400D plus Sigma 28-300mm lens bought privately on ebay from a seller who allowed me to inspect and collect from his home!
Sorry this is so long, but the negatives(and neutrals) on feedback should always be read in full!
Phil

P.S. Remember you will need other things too, a battery grip, memory cards, batteries, lens hoods, filters etc so don’t splash out too much on the camera itself. Also, be aware that about 95% of memory cards on ebay are fakes so I’d recommend getting them from Amazon instead.

Another good place to sorce spare batteries, CF cards is 7day shop had a few cards an batteries from them and have not had any problems and made good savings over UK mainland shops worth a look.

Also if on a tight budget consider Canon Outlet (Canon UK’s factory outlet who sell on ebay) got my 30D from them, yes it’s referbished and comes with one yrs warrenty but was much cheaper than Jessops etc. Agian bought several cameras from them with out problem… Only snag is the “check out” web site which can be temperamental at times but a quick call to thier call centre in Ireland soon sort things out.

Just my 2 Euro worth.. GL going DSLR, they need more work to get good pictures than a bridge or point n shoot type but are well worth the effort and you won’t look back.

Cliff

I got my Canon 400D with basic lens and the 90-300mm lens and a few other bits included for £650. Its a lovely camera and I have been really pleased with some of the results.

Thanks everyone that has given information so far, I still feel undecided on what to do, Partly as i do not have the money to invest in a good quality DSLR yet and would rather avoid the credit option the way the economy is lately.
I took 10,000+ photo’s will my current Fuji s5600 and i do not shy away from using its manual settings so would hope that i could adapt to a DSLR quickly.
I think what i may do its watch how the market goes and see what deals i can get. I am still thinking by Airshow season time.

I’ve just made the jump from digital to d-slr and I decided to go for the 400D. It is an excellent camera and, after two weeks, I’m producing far better results than with my old camera. I’ve got the Canon 75-300mm Mk3 USM and It seems to be a pretty good entry level lens. I picked the lens up from ebay and the camera with 18-55mm lens from currys with a bag. I’d recommend getting the camera from somewhere like currys where you can get a warrenty.

So here’s some answers…

1)400D or 450D
2)Around £400 (with 18-55), 450 – probably about £650?
3)Canon 75-300mm USM mkIII for aviation, The little 50mm f/1.8 II Lens is good for family shots because you can get a wide aperture of F/1.8. Not sure about macro lenses, I don’t have one and I use the kit lens for anything like that.
4)About £150 for the 300mm, Around £60 for the 50mm, not sure for a decent macro one.
5)Don’t know. The 400D seems complex at first but once you read through the manual it really isn’t.
6)Megapixels aren’t the most important thing, lenses are more important IMO.

Hope this helps a bit. Have a read through the reviews at http://www.dpreview.com.

P.S. Remember you will need other things too, a battery grip, memory cards, batteries, lens hoods, filters etc so don’t splash out too much on the camera itself. Also, be aware that about 95% of memory cards on ebay are fakes so I’d recommend getting them from Amazon instead.

There are more options than Canon DSLR’s: Pentax K10D and the recently announced K20D, Sony α100, α700 and the recently announced α300 and α350, Olympus with various interesting models and of course Nikon.

As a Nikon user for over 30 years I can only give advice on options in this brand. For a new user I could recommend to look into the D40x and its recent announced successor the D60 (£449 body only, with AFS 18-55VR kitlens £529), the AFS 70-300 4.5/5.6VR lens for aviation (£330) and for macro the recently announced AFS 60/2.8 Micro-Nikkor (£379) or the AFS 105/2.8VR Micro-Nikkor (£459). Prices are from the Grays of Westminster pricelist http://www.graysofwestminster.co.uk/products/digital.html , but probably there are cheaper options.

The lenses are not cheap, but I would strongly advise always to buy the best glass within your reach (applies to every brand).

My advice: read as many test reports and user reports as possible ( http://www.dpreview.com/ ) , make a shortlist of the camera’s that appeal to you most (compare features), try to handle those camera’s (and make test shots) and decide which camera’s ergomics appeal to you most. As for lenses it is important to note that with Canon and Nikon you have the widest choice, not only within those brands, but also from the independent manufacturers (Sigma, Tokina, Tamron). Good luck and enjoy your survey. 🙂

1) I use a Canon 350D – I’d recommend it but the 400D has superseeded it!

2) Canon will probably be replacing the 400D shortly so they may well come down in price, check out the web for prices

Canon HAS superseded it, the 450D will be available from next month. Better kit lens, more features and 12.1 instead of 10 MPixels. The 400 will still be available and be cheaper so look for the features you want and see which has them.

Personally, I’m waiting for the 450. It has spot metering and live view over the 400 which I think will be useful. As for lenses, I agree with what’s been said. You might want to consider the IS (Image Stabilisation) version of the 75-300 but it’s a bit more pricey. Could be useful if your panning isn’t as good as it could be and allows sharper shots at lower shutter speeds.

I currently use a Canon S2 IS which was bought for the big zoom. Unfortunately it just doesn’t produce the results I want, good camera though it is it won’t produce the same results as a DSLR.

All this info is available online so happy Googling!

John

1) I use a Canon 350D – I’d recommend it but the 400D has superseeded it!

2) Canon will probably be replacing the 400D shortly so they may well come down in price, check out the web for prices

3) For Aircraft 75-300 zoom would do these sell for around £150. Sigmas version probably sells for less. If you want quality (and more reach) you are looking at either Sigma’s 50-500 (around £800ish) or Canons EF100-400L IS (around £1000)
Macro photography isn’t really my speciality, i’d like to but that would mean more spending!

4) Depends on what you mean by jump! If you have your cam on Auto then yes as having a DSLR on auto would be a bit of a waste of money! Although you can learn and benefit with the DSLR, Digital offers somthing what film never did, you can take practice shots without extra cost of developing so i’d say not that big a jump.

6) This depends on A) your storage to PC and cameras media card,
B) if you are going to use it on full resolution, More pixels means more cropping without getting pixalated/noise. That said a 6X4 print is easily printed on less than 3 mega pixels.
I would go for at least 8 mega pixels for the ease of cropping to centre and enlarging prints.

This is just my opinion but hope its helped,

H

Thanks for the advice, I will look in to saving up i reckon, And somehow talk the wife into it too.

I have been asking on another thread regarding the Fuji S8000 camera and it seems general advice is to save up for a DSLR.
So what i am wondering is the following,

1)What camera would you recommend as a start up DSLR?
2)What sort of price am i looking at for said camera?
3)What lenses will i need?
*I do a lot of close up macro photo’s of flowers etc, As well as Airshow photography and building and landscape photography and some family photo’s.
4)what sort of price would i need pay for lenses that i need?
5)Is the jump from a my current S5600 to a DSLR a big one?,
6)Is it better to go for a higher megapixel camera in the long run?

Thanks for any advice you can give.

1) I use a Canon 350D – I’d recommend it but the 400D has superseeded it!

2) Canon will probably be replacing the 400D shortly so they may well come down in price, check out the web for prices

3) For Aircraft 75-300 zoom would do these sell for around £150. Sigmas version probably sells for less. If you want quality (and more reach) you are looking at either Sigma’s 50-500 (around £800ish) or Canons EF100-400L IS (around £1000)
Macro photography isn’t really my speciality, i’d like to but that would mean more spending!

4) Depends on what you mean by jump! If you have your cam on Auto then yes as having a DSLR on auto would be a bit of a waste of money! Although you can learn and benefit with the DSLR, Digital offers somthing what film never did, you can take practice shots without extra cost of developing so i’d say not that big a jump.

6) This depends on A) your storage to PC and cameras media card,
B) if you are going to use it on full resolution, More pixels means more cropping without getting pixalated/noise. That said a 6X4 print is easily printed on less than 3 mega pixels.
I would go for at least 8 mega pixels for the ease of cropping to centre and enlarging prints.

This is just my opinion but hope its helped,

H