Good starting DSLR - Price/Recommend

turninggreen

Hi

Need some help. Looking to buy a camera for my wife for her birthday but I have zilch knowledge of camera's. She is interested in starting photography as a hobby but is a beginner. She was talking about looking for a Canon DSLR camera that can expand with different lenses as she expands her knowledge. Can anybody point me in the direction of a good DSLR camera and is it possible to purchase in the €300-€350 mark a camera that will last and expand with lens options and where I can
buy one. have looked at various web sites but I am confused with all the options and I am running out of time.

Thanks in advance.

Dimy

With that budget you don't have many options I'm afraid. I would definitely recommend a Canon or Nikon DSLR for the simple fact that they have more lenses and accessories available if you wish to upgrade your kit later (they also have a bigger 2nd hand market).

The cheapest Canon DSLR would be the 1000D, you'll need at least 1 lens to go with it, the 18-55mm lens is a good starter lens and should be available to buy as a "kit" together with the camera body.

Just above the 1000D you'll have the xxxD series (450D - 500D - 550D), maybe you can find a good offer on the 450D or 500D if still available on stock.

I'm not familiar with the Nikon range of cameras so can't help with that. Good luck!

OREGATO

I'm fairly new to the game myself and to be honest, I doubt you will find anything worthwhile (brand new) for your budget. I spent over €800 on the camera and accessories.

Have you thought of perhaps a bridge camera? or perhaps getting a second hand camera? Adverts.ie would be a good place to have a look.

Also, you should get her the book 'Understanding Exposure', it really simply is a fantastic book, was recommended to me by the folks here and I must say has been a great read and a fantastic resource.

Diabhal_Glas

You should be able to get a used Canon 300d, 350d with a kit lens for this price. Try adverts.ie or ebay , you can upgrade lenses using this body and in the future upgrade the body.

sensibleken

ive seen a coouple of canon 400d around the place. the model is a few years old so theyve come down alot. they are still excelent cameras though.

one peice of advise is dont just judge the camera on how many megapixels it has, allot of people do. your phone camera can have the same as many entry level DSLRs but it is obviously not as good.

whenever i am looking for new gear i google the model name and 'review' and try and get as many opinions as posible

happy hunting

duffarama

You could get a new Olympus DSLR with a lens for less than €300 I think.

You need to order from Greece though and shipping will cost about €50 and take roughly 4 weeks unless you order express delivery.

http://photoagora.gr/fwtografikes-mhxanes/olympus/digital-slr-cameras-e-system-/olympus-e-450-kits.html

Click the word english in the top right of the page

Ghost Train

Sony a230 €400 powercity
Sony a230 €324 argos
Canon 1000D €430 amazon
Nikon 3000 €410 amazon

Thecageyone

Pretty sure they have Olympus Dslrs in Argos, I think I seen a deal on the E-420 with lens for about €350 recently. Sony Alpha 230 is pretty decent price and perfect for a starter too.

Ghost Train

Thecageyone wrote: »

Pretty sure they have Olympus Dslrs in Argos, I think I seen a deal on the E-420 with lens for about €350 recently. Sony Alpha 230 is pretty decent price and perfect for a starter too.

don't see the olympus on argos but they do have the A230 for €324 which seems pretty good

joconnell

Here's something I popped into a recent question:

Buy a cheap digital slr - it'll get you full manual control so you can tweak things to your creative liking. They're as simple as you want to make them in that they've got full auto but the fun really starts when you start playing around with aperture and shutter speed which will give you control over selective focus and motion blur, respectively. Grab yourself an entry level nikon or canon such as a d40 or 400d on ebay or possibly even second hand - most folks look after their cameras and it's an easy entry point if you decide not to keep it up. The main advantage of the slr is that you can change the lenses depending on what type of thing you want to photograph so it it's landscapes you'll probably steer more towards a good tripod and very wide lenses to take in as much scenery as possible. If you're shooting nature or sports, you'll probably be quite far away from your subjects so you'll end up veering towards longer lenses so you can zoom in a lot.

Quality wise the thing that'll make the biggest difference is the lenses that you put on your camera - you might upgrade bodies over the years but once you know what type of stuff you want to shoot you can start putting your money into good glass which'll last you a long long time.

In terms of the different bodies I personally don't think there's a massive difference with the non professional ones - as you go up money wise you get slightly less grainy images, maybe bigger lcds on the back, the ability to shoot bursts of images quicker and also the build quality / weather sealing. The actual images won't get significantly better that you'd notice a huge difference until you step up to a full level pro camera like a 5d / 1d - then you're getting huge images and also wider shots from your camera. Serious money though!

If you're looking for something compact, the panasonic lx3, canon g11 and canon s90 are great for most things, give you full manual control and can fit in your pocket - because of the size of the camera you're not going to get really shallow focus shots but they still make lovely images.

If you're going cheaper again, any of the panasonic lumix range are deadly compacts.

On your more specific questions, the choice of models comes down to feel as much as anything else - you'll get the same controls and similar quality from a nikon as a canon at this point but one might feel better in your hand than the other. The noise performance might be better in one over the other at a similar price though (for example my canon 400d is cleaner at high isos than the nikon d40) so you could look at which feels more natural to you, then take a look at something like www.dpreview.com for sample shots taken at each of the different sensitivity settings.

Any dslr you change the lenses and all of them have full manual control if you need it. The lenses are the really important bit of the setup as they'll determine a lot about the quality of shot and also what you're able to shoot well. As I said above the stuff you buy will be decided by the type of thing you end up shooting so as you start to find a style or direction, you can add more lenses that suit.

Corkfeen

Picked up my 400d last year on adverts.ie with plenty of extras for 330euro. T'is a great bit of kit so maybe second hand might be worth your while.;)

Thecageyone

I bought my Sony A200 with 2 lenses, filters, wireless remote and books for €300 Used is the way to go and I've not heard any horror stories from anyone buying through adverts.

But, as it's a gift for your missus, probably best get it new. The A230 as mentioned above, is great value. I can vouch for the A200 [older version] - Easy to use as a first dslr, and very good Image quality. Miles better than my old Fuji super zoom. Only thing is there's no Live view. This is not an issue for me personally, but maybe your wife would prefer to have it?

hbr

Ghost Train wrote: »

Sony a230 €400 powercity
Sony a230 €324 argos
Canon 1000D €430 amazon
Nikon 3000 €410 amazon

Argos are quite competitive for the Canon 1000D and the Nikon D3000 too. When you include the shipping costs, they are pretty close to eBay prices. You could save a few quid by buying a refurbished camera or a grey import, but I would prefer to have the comfort that goes with a 12 month warranty.

soozyq

The Canon EOS range is great. I have the 450 and can't complain. They just have a new one out (550) so I would say you could get the 450 pretty cheap these days. Spend the money on the lenses though if you want good pics.
Also take a look on flickr and you can check out the quality of image for each camera. You can search by camera and it will give you a good idea of what you can do with each camera.