First dSLR

Stephen

Warning, photography newbie here.

I had a cheap and cheerful Nikon Coolpix 5600 point'n'shoot until recently, when it decided to commit suicide outside of its warranty. Good excuse to upgrade though!

I posted a couple of weeks ago about how I was thinking about getting a Fuji S6500fd from B&H in New York (I'm going next week). The Fuji's price, low-light performance, manual zoom and focus rings, AA NiMH batteries and 10.7x zoom (28-300mm 35mm equivalent, apparently. I'm not 100% sure what exactly that means ) attracted me to it. Its lack of hotshoe and crappy EVF and plastic tripod mount are negative points for me. Also the manual focus is apparently near impossible to use accurately with the crappy EVF so that's a major down side. It also only supports xD cards, unlike the higher Fuji bridge cameras which take CF cards too.

The Fuji comes to $400 from B&H before you buy any memory cards or anything, and comes supplied with none. That's about €308 at current rates.

Anyways, I've been doing a lot of reading and talking to a friend with a Nikon D50, he reckons this is what I should go for. He lives far away so I haven't gotten to try it myself. By all accounts (searching past threads here, online reviews) its an excellent entry level dSLR.

B&H have it (body only) for $450. I would like to have a similar telephoto capability to the Fuji, so I saw this Sigma 55-200mm AF lens for $149. From what I can tell, its the equivalent to a 300mm 35mm lens at the long end - is that correct?
I would also need another lens for closer every day stuff like family photos, something along the lines of the 18-55mm kit lens that you'd normally get with this camera in Ireland. The only one B&H seems to have in stock is this refurbished one for $119. Should I be afraid of the term refurbished? I could always go elsewhere for it.

Anyways, all of that comes to $718 + New York sales tax of about 6% (I think), adding up to $761. That's about 588 euros according to xe.com/ucc. I'd also be picking up a cheap'n'nasty light/easily portable tripod for about $30. I have a 2GB SD card I can stick into it already. I'll probably buy a polarising filter too, just for reflection-killing.

Any input you have is welcome. I really am new to this so I'm not even 100% sure if the lenses I have linked above are entirely suitable for this camera or if they are any good. When I'm done this will probably cost twice as much as the Fuji - is it worth it?

Stephen

I should add that they also have this Nikon 55-200 lens for $169.99. Is it worth the extra $20 over the Sigma?

... and now (25 minutes later) I notice this one: 70-300mm Nikon

^^ actually that one looks brilliant to me, with the huge reach it has. I won't be expecting miracles from it, since it only costs $145. No optical stabilisation or anything like that, but that's what a tripod's for!

penny1

I have the Fuji s6500 its really good, but i also had to research the D70 for a customer its probably a murch better camera, but if you wanted a better one theres the D80 it has a 18-1 35 lens you would also be able to get a package deal with it of 2 1GB cards. check out Photo Import L.t.d

Stephen wrote:

I should add that they also have

this Nikon 55-200 lens for $169.99. Is it worth the extra $20 over the Sigma?

... and now (25 minutes later) I notice this one: 70-300mm Nikon

^^ actually that one looks brilliant to me, with the huge reach it has. I won't be expecting miracles from it, since it only costs $145. No optical stabilisation or anything like that, but that's what a tripod's for!

Stephen

D70(s?) looks nice but is a bit outside my price range, unfortunately.

melekalikimaka

the baz and myself both have the d50, excellent camera, reccommend it whole heartedly, only slightly more than the d40, but greatly better, its an excellent intro model to slr

Stephen

Any opinion on those lenses I listed? Particularly the cheapo Nikon 70-300mm one

melekalikimaka

i dunno, ya can't really go wrong with the kit lens, grand for most things, that with a 50mm 1.8 is a great set up, do you really need that extra zoom?

Stephen

The problem is that the D50 is end-of-life at the moment and seems to be unavailable with the kit lens in New York now, you can only get it body only or with a more expensive 28-105mm lens.

Benster

I have that lens (70-300) and although it aint the most top-end ever, for a starter like yourself it'll more than do. Although the min-aperture isn't great, it is actually quite sharp and at the price it's at, you can't really go wrong.

B.

Edit: Oh, and I've played with the D80 (a mate's) and it was the quality of that that finally persuaded me to buy my first dSLR... A very nice piece of kit with probably way more features than a starter will ever use. He got his with an SB800, 2Gb card, bag and 18-55 kit lens thrown in from AJPurdy's in UK, just over a grand euro if I remember correctly.

Stephen

I can't actually find anywhere in New York that has the Nikkor 18-55mm lens in stock (hard to believe), but Pixmania have an 18-50mm from Sigma for €111 which looks like it should do the trick. I may be stuck with the long lens only for my week in New York
The aforementioned Sigma is also out of stock in B&H.

mtracey

Nikon 70-300mm (non-VR) lens isn't very good, better to get the Sigma one instead to be honest. I have it and its a fine lens.

Would go with the D50 as others have mentioned. Very good quality camera.
A bonus it has over the D40 it that it'll allow you to use the Nikon 50mm 1.8 lens , which is a superb lens at a very very reasonable price. The D40 will only AF with AF-S lens

Stephen

Yeah, that's the biggest beef I have with the D40 - no built in autofocus motor, and the loss of some other handy features like exposure bracketing. It does have a larger, higher resolution LCD but what does that really matter when its an SLR as you'll be composing using the viewfinder anyway?

Might pick up that sigma then, its roughly the same price in B&H. Cheers. I'm still mystified by the lack of 18-55mm Nikon-fit lenses.

a question: is the APO version of the same Sigma lens worth the extra $80 that it costs over the non-APO one?

melekalikimaka

its prob out of stock cos its a kit lens, most would buy the 18-70 instead, also kit, but alot better

Benster

Sorry to hijack the thread, but my question also relates to my "first dSLR" too...

I have a film F80 that I normally use with a 24-85mm zoom. Since I got my D200 I have just used the same lens, accepting the 1.5x magnification effect.
If I get a DX-type lens (specifically for digi's) would an 18-70mm actually be 18mm at the widest angle of does this resolve to 27-ish mm as well? This has been confusing me recently...

Cheers,
B.

GristlyEnd

It's still the equivalent of a 27-105mm lens in 35mm format.

Stephen

melekalikimaka wrote:

its prob out of stock cos its a kit lens, most would buy the 18-70 instead, also kit, but alot better

At about $300 its too expensive for the likes of me!

melekalikimaka

Stephen wrote:

At about $300 its too expensive for the likes of me!

join the club. the second hard market is flooded with the 18-55 from upgraders so keep an eye out for it on adverts

Benster

So, forgive my ignorance on this, but what does DX do for a lens then? I was under the impression that it was a narrower focus of the image onto the smaller sensor so that the 18mm on the barrell meant 18mm focal length onto the sensor.

Stephen

Thanks for the tip, might well do that. B&H apparently have a used 18-55 in stock so I might get that if they still have it next week.

Benster: I think the DX just indicates that if you mount that lens on a non-digital camera you'll end up with black borders as it won't fill the full film frame. From the far-too-much reading i've been doing about Nikon DSLRs over the last few days, even though the DX lenses are specifically for digital they kept the same naming system as with the traditional lenses.

Benster

Ah, the black borders, I remember reading that somewhere myself.

Let us know how you get on in B&H, I'll be over in July with another wad of fifties to calm the beast within...