Need help choosing DSLR Camera

[salad_man]

Hey guys, I am in the market for a DSLR camera. This will be a first purchase to me in the DSLR area. I do not know much besides what I have looked up and so forth. Just asking for some opinions and or pointers in choosing a camera that would be a good choice for a beginner. Looking in the 500.00 range, and video is not a must but would be nice. Only brands I have really looked at have been Sony and Canon, thanks again for any help.

[ssc]

I have no info on the sony. It seems in the DSLR arena that canon and nikon are the two main players, and I am of no help regarding nikon. I shoot canons. In your price range it is a bit limited. This is the camera I would suggest as an intro DSLR, http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/show ... =15&page=3

This is a good camera for the money and has good features with the ability to grow. It is a bit more than your budget, but I do not know if the $500 is just the body. The glass is where the money gets you and the glass is more important than the body, as a general rule. Plus, get good glass-lens, and it stay with you as you upgrade the body. The buy and sale forum of fred miranda is a great source for used equipment. Also the refurb camera's from Canon are a good source, http://shop.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs/st ... 1_-1_29252
I would not hesitate to buy a refurb and we are lucky to have Canon USA here in Irvine for service.

What do you intend to shoot? Landscape, wildlife, portrait? Also do a bit of reading on Fred Miranda, as many questions can be answered. There are many other aspects, but it would be a long post, such as FF vs Crop etc. If you have a specific question, I can try to answer, but I am still learning. I have shot a bit with Braden and I hope he chimes in. Feel free to review my photo site.

Cheers, Steve

[sdnative]

Here is a used one in So Cal. No affiliation.

http://forum.ih8mud.com/mud-bay-miscell ... items.html

[salad_man]

I have no info on the sony. It seems in the DSLR arena that canon and nikon are the two main players, and I am of no help regarding nikon. I shoot canons. In your price range it is a bit limited. This is the camera I would suggest as an intro DSLR, http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/show ... =15&page=3

This is a good camera for the money and has good features with the ability to grow. It is a bit more than your budget, but I do not know if the $500 is just the body. The glass is where the money gets you and the glass is more important than the body, as a general rule. Plus, get good glass-lens, and it stay with you as you upgrade the body. The buy and sale forum of fred miranda is a great source for used equipment. Also the refurb camera's from Canon are a good source, http://shop.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs/st ... 1_-1_29252
I would not hesitate to buy a refurb and we are lucky to have Canon USA here in Irvine for service.

What do you intend to shoot? Landscape, wildlife, portrait? Also do a bit of reading on Fred Miranda, as many questions can be answered. There are many other aspects, but it would be a long post, such as FF vs Crop etc. If you have a specific question, I can try to answer, but I am still learning. I have shot a bit with Braden and I hope he chimes in. Feel free to review my photo site.

Cheers, Steve

I intend to shoot mostly landscape shots, or still offroad shots and the sort. I have had canon's in the past ans am very fond of the quality and pictures of their cameras. Not sure what lenses I would need yet.

[salad_man]

Another update, been looking over this camera here, what do you think? http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/sto ... ifications

[Chazz Layne]

If you like Canon already, you'll probably hate the Sony. Beyond the simple interface differences, the Canon tends to capture sharper images with more vivid colors. You can make up for this in post-processing of course, but that means more work to get good photos.

Plus, the RAW file processing software. Canon's is great. I'll never know about Sony's as I'll never trust one of their discs in my computers, ever! (spyware and malware)

[michael]

You'll get even more opinions on the best DSLR to buy than if you were to ask about installing a dual battery system

I think the cameras already recommended will all do a great job. I've personally found that Nikon's colors tend to be a bit warmer, but that also depends on the model. DPReview has some great info on almost every camera on the market.

In judging my own work, I think my best photos were taken with the Nikon, but mostly because I like natural lighting shots of living flowers and plants. It is easy to get wrapped around the wheel comparing specs, but very few digital cameras (including the "point and shoot" variety) will take "bad" photos. You'll hear this in every photo course, but it is more about the way you see things than the camera you use to capture what you're seeing. I'll add to that from my own experience and say that it is also about patience and setting up the shot. I'll attach a couple of photos taken with a Nikon CoolPix. These are natural light, outdoor photos of living subjects. This isn't what you said you'll likely be doing with your new camera but may show what can be done with a reasonably priced camera. By the way, the resolution on these photos is 2.1MP. While companies promote huge pixel counts, mostly that just means huge file sizes. Note that while I've reduced the resolution for posting, at 2.1MP resolution you can still see the shadow of the aphid's legs and the web from the spider's spinneret.

My motto is "take a million photos, one of them is bound to be good"

[salad_man]

Thanks for all the reply's, I am leaning more toward the canon as I have always used them.

[Chazz Layne]

While companies promote huge pixel counts, mostly that just means huge file sizes.

This is true to a point with pocket cameras. The tiny sensors in point-and-shoots are too small to physically use more than about 10MP without the sharpness of the individual pixels suffering. I'll actually go out of my way to avoid "super MP" P&S cameras for this reason. Zoom in to actual size on photos taken with the same settings on an 8MP P&S and a 12MP P&S, more often than not the one from the 8MP camera will be sharper.

More important than MP is sensor size, but since we're talking DSLRs its all moot anyhow. They don't currently make a sensor with enough MP to suffer from such problems in the larger sizes used in DSLRs. The biggest benefit with sensor size I've seen during post is that more of the "pixels" are actually useful. This means you can crop in much tighter to something you couldn't get close enough to capture full frame, and still get a usable image. Many of my recent photos are cropped to about 60% of the actual captured image, something I simply wouldn't be able to do with a P&S sensor at any MP.

I'll agree that megapixels aren't everything, but they are something... and important! I recommend shooting in at least 8MP if possible, or the maximum your camera can do without sacrificing image quality. With the price of memory cards these days there really is no excuse. I can't count how many times I've gotten someone's photos from an event only to find most of it useless because it was all shot at a low MP - and I'm only talking web-use here. Things get much, much worse when we start talking about print (think calendars, photo albums, etc). You can always delete things you don't want later, but you can never put the missing pixels back in the shot.

[michael]

I'll agree that megapixels aren't everything, but they are something... and important! I recommend shooting in at least 8MP if possible, or the maximum your camera can do without sacrificing image quality. With the price of memory cards these days there really is no excuse. I can't count how many times I've gotten someone's photos from an event only to find most of it useless because it was all shot at a low MP - and I'm only talking web-use here. Things get much, much worse when we start talking about print (think calendars, photo albums, etc). You can always delete things you don't want later, but you can never put the missing pixels back in the shot.

I completely agree! My comment was meant for those who might choose a camera based on a high pixel count alone rather than other, equally important features. You get a lot of flexibility in post processing with a decent pixel count from a good sensor. Many DLSR's allow you to select the resolution used for shooting and it is generally a good idea to shoot at the higher resolutions. There are tricks you can use during processing to improve sharpness (fractal processing, etc), but you can never add resolution after the fact. I typically shoot at the highest resolution available on a given camera. The important specs to look for if you plan to shoot at higher resolutions are data transfer rate and the specs of the memory card itself. The better cameras have buffers to allow stripping the data from the the CCD or CMOS sensor quickly and temporarily storing it while it is written to the memory card, but fast frame rates may fill the buffer and result in a longer wait between photos. Not normally a big deal, but it can make you miss a shot now and then. It is a good idea to get the fastest memory card you can afford (e.g., "40X") to avoid a bottleneck in data transfer. Don't fret too much about this spec, as it won't come into play in typical shooting situations and the decent cameras provide good trade-off solutions.

Good resolution is important in that you often don't know in advance what you're going to do with a photo or even if a particular shot is going to be that "one in a million" photo opportunity. For example, many photography shows want your submission printed in larger sizes with sharpness being a key judging factor. The spider photo in my original post received an honorable mention in a juried exposition at a 14"X20" size, but I can't help thinking it might have done better if I'd had more than a 2.1MP resolution to work with...

salad_man: See? I warned you that you'd get a lot of opinions

Chazz: Unfortunately, we didn't get to meet on the recent GSE trip but it looks like we'll have some good stuff to discuss over a campfire some time!