33 replies to this topic

[brucegray666]

I'm looking to buy a half decent camera for our wedding / hooneymoon and to use afterwards. Had a look at some in the shops and tried to compare the stats I understood (all of them were identical at 14 megapixels and x24 optical zoom) but have come home feeling none the wiser and still no clue as to what to buy. Any of you snappy happy chappies be able to recommend something good - in the £200 mark, maybe a bit more if it's worth it.

[Ogul]

I'll talk to my dad, he's clued in on this stuff.

[Christian U]

The next time I actually spend money on a camera, I'll buy an SLR camera. It's the only way to get really good pictures, it seems to me.

The one that's being recommended to me all over the place currently is the Canon eos 600d, but that's way out of the price range you're talking about (and way out of mine, too, although those things are a lot cheaper here, apparently - think 1:1 pound to Euro). But even the cheapest, simplest one from that line has got very good reviews on amazon. You'd be spending a bit more money (though there's one shop there offering it for 235 pounds, if that's real), but it'd probably be worth it. I am sure Mike and others will be able to judge better than me whether buying a cheaper SLR camera makes any sense at all, I've still not decided when and which one I'll get myself, after all

http://www.amazon.co...55&sr=8-1-fkmr0

[brucegray666]

Cheers, for that link Christian. If it turns out I have to spend a bit more to get something good I'm happy to do that, the £200 I quoted up thread was more a rough figure I had in my head - should have guessed it'd be a wee bit dearer!

[Ogul]

My dad suggested the Nikon P300, which is more or less in your price range and he said it was a solidly performing camera.

[garjones]

Sounds good. I have no real camera expertise but had a funny experience buying a digital camera in Hong Kong.

My wife liked this Sony model with some high specs and we were as far as handing over the credit card when the guy in the shop said "is this a gift or for you?". I said it was for us and he said "don't buy a Sony Camera, they make TVs, buy one from a camera manufacturer", he then showed us a Nikon for the same price. Officially it had lower resolution but he took a pic with both and the Nikon one was much better and we bought that.

So that advice stuck with me. Buy one from a proper camera company.

[Mike]

And conversely, I use a Sony and love it. When comparing DSLRs, the lens attached to the body often makes as much difference as the body itself; the kit lens on the Sonys is fairly average, but most of the lenses available for the Sonys are based on Minolta lenses which are more than decent.

I picked a Sony originally cos I played with Irish Dave's one in Leeds one year, and loved some of the things it could do that its Nikon and Canon competitors couldn't yet; have stuck with them since. I've worked up from a Alpha 350 (which my sister now has) to an Alpha 55 and have never regretted picking Sony over Nikon or Canon. I think unless you're uber-professional for most people making the jump to a DSLR is more of a difference than which brand you go for; go for one you feel comfortable using and hoiking around. I would recommend a DSLR though, best thing I ever did camera wise was getting one.

Still, there's a lot of truth to the adage that the best camera is the one you've got in your hand when you see something worth taking; I take a lot of photographs that I'm quite pleased with with my iPhone.

[brucegray666]

Ok, stupid question, but what exactly does SLR / DSLR do / mean?

[Steve Sensible]

Single lens reflex, or digital SLR. Basically, the lens you look through is the same one that takes the photo, unlike a compact, where there's a seperate viewfinder.

[Ogul]

Single lens reflex, or digital SLR. Basically, the lens you look through is the same one that takes the photo, unlike a compact, where there's a seperate viewfinder.

Yeah, and the simple layman's answer is that an SLR is the kind that looks like an old school traditional camera, with the big cylindrical lens that you can pop off and change out, while a non-SLR is the kind with the built-in, typically retractable lens.

[Christian U]

It seems to me that the most important difference when you're actually taking fotos - besides the whole system of bigger lenses and that you get better pictures with that - is that with an SLR camera, you can work with selective focus. Meaning that with a normal camera, everything is sharp and in-focus, so nothing stands out, whereas with an SLR one, you can focus on certain aspects of the picture. Basically, something you see in professional photography all the time.



This is also the reason why you can shoot videos with good SLR cameras that actually can look like professional movies, simply because our eyes is used to film using this all the time (as opposed to home videos or crappy TV shows).

Edited by Christian U, 17 June 2012 - 07:22 AM.

[Ogul]

I think there are some tricky cameras now that can use like radar to isolate objects in a scene so that you can manually adjust focus after the fact. If not, they should do that.

[Alan Taylor]

You can't go wrong with a Panasonic Lumix, all Panasonic cameras have Leica lenses which is apparently the best you can get.

You could get a Leica camera, but then you are looking at paying close to a grand and you're getting pretty much the same thing with a Panasonic.

[T Masters]

Mike's on the money with the Sony.

The Cannon Eos range take great shots although are a bit unwieldy. For a little extra you can grab a more compact and user-friendly Sony Alpha camera. Both come with 18-55 mm lenses which are fantastic all-purpose lenses.

I've just bought a Nex-5, which is Sony's 2nd top-tier camera in the range (the Nex-7 is the top). It cost me just under 300, from Amazon.

My Dad's a journalist, and as always sworn by Nikon and Cannon, until now. Sony's pipped the market on DSLR's aimed at the unlearned photographer. The computer's in these cameras are intelligent enough to do all the things on the fly that the old pro's had to spend 10's of minutes doing. Sony may make TV's, but they make everything else as well. They're one of the largest electronic developers globally - they're not half-assing it with their cameras; their r&d is just as good as Nikon, or Cannon, or Lumix.

EDIT: In terms of the Leica lenses being the 'top', you probably won't notice the difference between lenses unless you make it your trade. I've heard the same said about Carl Zeiss lenses being the 'top'. At a certain level of quality, the difference is negligible: lenses are lenses.

Edited by T Masters, 17 June 2012 - 09:41 PM.

[steveuk]

<SNIP>

EDIT: In terms of the Leica lenses being the 'top', you probably won't notice the difference between lenses unless you make it your trade. I've heard the same said about Carl Zeiss lenses being the 'top'. At a certain level of quality, the difference is negligible: lenses are lenses.

It's easy to get seduced by the wrong facts, the ones that don't relate to what you are doing.

My camera is a Canon 550D and I have half a dozen lenses now, but my everyday choice is this, the 50mm f1.8;



Shop around you'll get for less that £100, I paid (coincidentally) about £50 for mine, on Ebay.

It's cheap, mostly made of plastic and unlikely to survive long in a rough, tough, photojournalist environment but I'm not a rough tough photojournalist and it works great for me.

The choice if you are the rough tough, etc. is ideally something more like this;



It's a 50mm as well, and at f1.2 it's a bit faster but it's one of Canon's flagship "L series" lenses and it retails at a list price of £1,900.

Everything about the lens is better than mine, better materials, better construction, better quality control but is it £1,850 better?

Not for me, but if I was embedded with a troop of soldiers in Afghanistan and risking my life to get "the" shot, or working with supermodels on $10,000 a day then I'd want the best chance of getting those great photos and that's why there's a market for these lenses.

[brucegray666]

Thanks for all the input folks. I'm probably going to go with the Eos Christian linked - anyone see any reasons that say i should avoid it?

[Steve Sensible]

The alternative to that is the Nikon D3100. It's very similar in specs, but it has a brilliant on-screen guided mode, which shows you how to use all the functions.

[brucegray666]

Hrm... just when I'd almost my mind up someone brigs something new to the table. Being told how to use it does sound like a good feature (albeit a bit self aware / Skynet-y).

[Steve Sensible]

Just bought a Nikon D3100. Should be with me tomorrow, so I'll let you know what I think.

[brucegray666]

Thanks for all the suggestions folks, went with the Canon EOS 1100D in the end which should arrive tomorrow or Saturday (hopefully). Looking at its tech details it sounds like it has a feature guide similar to that on the Nikon D3100.