GRcade

I think I'm getting the girlfriend a DSLR for Chrimbo. I know - I KNOW - that Canon and Nikon are the best, but they are also the priciest. I can justify £300, but £400-500 would be more of a stretch.

I've spotted the Sony A390 going for less than £300, with an 18-55mm lense. I've read some generally favourable reviews, and can't see why that represents anything other than a bit of a bargain.

Is there any screamingly urgent reason why I shouldn't buy a Sony camera?

Have you considered a second hand camera?

Your partner will have way more choices in aftermarket lenses if you invest in a (2nd hand mbs?) Nikon or Canon. Sony are relatively new to the DSLR game and as such do not have such a wide selection.

Stu wrote:Have you considered a second hand camera?

If it was for me, I definitely would. But she's pretty fussy about stuff like that and I'd be worried about it going wrong.

Dual wrote:Your partner will have way more choices in aftermarket lenses if you invest in a (2nd hand mbs?) Nikon or Canon. Sony are relatively new to the DSLR game and as such do not have such a wide selection.

Hmm. Sounds fair - didn't realise that'd be an issue. Is the Sony range really restrictive, then?

I'm not actually strapped for cash, it's just less money I can spend on the car...

Edit - I have another question... what does an 18mm-55mm lens actually mean in real terms? I mean, I understand that my cheapo bridge camera has a 12x optical zoom. What does the 18-55 equate to, or does it not work like that?

I bought my (Nikon D90) from http://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk/ which only sell 2nd hand cameras - you get a 6 month warranty and the condition of my camera was quite excellent you wouldn't know it was pre-owned. I also saved about £100.

poser wrote:Edit - I have another question... what does an 18mm-55mm lens actually mean in real terms? I mean, I understand that my cheapo bridge camera has a 12x optical zoom. What does the 18-55 equate to, or does it not work like that?

It's really low, equates to about 3x optical zoom.

Grumpy David wrote:

poser wrote:Edit - I have another question... what does an 18mm-55mm lens actually mean in real terms? I mean, I understand that my cheapo bridge camera has a 12x optical zoom. What does the 18-55 equate to, or does it not work like that?

It's really low, equates to about 3x optical zoom.

OK, thanks - so it really is just down to the maths - presumably a 200mm lense would give a shade over a 10x zoom, as compared to an 18mm lens, then.

Dual - cheers for the link, I'll have a scoosh around that site. If the quality's good, and it comes with a guarantee, then it's worth a look.

It seems like every time someone posts a question in here, DigitalRev make a related video.




So yeah, get a second hand better camera if you can.

Honestly, go for a Nikon on a Canon. The whole point of having a DSLR is the choice of lenses you have, and they've got the most, by quite a way.


My biggest gripe with my D3100 is that the blasted thing hasn't got a motor in the body which means you can only use AF-S lenses. This is also true of the D5100. They cost about twice as much as a non AF-S lens.


I might have access to a lot of Jessops vouchers soon, and I was initially thinking of getting a few nice lenses for my D3100 but I'm thinking I might just chuck the D3100 and get a 550D or something, but we'll see. I'm happy with the D3100 but if I can upgrade for what is essentially nothing, it makes sense to get a camera with a motor in it.

I'm going on holiday in a month so am in the market for a good compact digital camera. I'm not a photography expert but I do like to take photos. I would love a DSLR but I can't afford one right now plus it would be hassle travelling with I think so I want something relatively small and lightweight. Plus if I lost an amazing camera on holiday I'd most likely cry. So what can you guys recommend? My budget isn't great as I want to spend less than £100. I saw the mention of getting second hand cameras though, so that is an option if it means getting a good camera for cheaper.

It means it's really strawberry floating sexy. Nah, it just means Canon Fit, as Sigma make lenses to fit other mounts as well.

It has the proper mount type in the technical details, it's a Canon EF. Your 500D will take both current Canon mount types, EF and EF-S, so it will fit fine.

It's probably worth pointing out though, that if it's specifically a macro lens your after, that isn't true macro. It'll only give you a 1:2 representation of the image, which is still close, but it's not proper 1:1.

SimonM_89 wrote:Thinking of asking for this Macro Lens as one of my Xmas/Birthday presents: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sigma-70-300mm- ... 245&sr=8-8

How do I know if it's compatible with my Camera (EOS 500D)? And what does 'Fit Lens' mean?

"Canon Fit," "Nikon Fit," "Pentax Fit," etc.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-75-300mm- ... 452&sr=1-3


I'd look into that. I'd be quite surprised if the sigma is better than Canon's own glass.

Right i've got a small problem. I've been wanting to take some self portraits with a Canon EOS 1000D, i want to take them standing further away from the camera which means setting it on a timer and moving into the frame which causes me to not be in focus on the image, is there a way that can be resolved?

thanks

Manual focus.

Put something where you're going to be and focus on it. Then switch off auto focus.


Doing pure manual focus (focusing yourself) is likely to be crap as modern lenses aren't really designed with it in mind.



I'm seriously considering getting into some Off Camera Flash stuff. A YN-560 flash, light stand, shoot through umbrella and thing to attach it to the stand seem to be about £100 for the lot.


I'm not a hundred percent sure how much use I'd get out of it though. Lugging around all that gear could be tiresome. Gotta read up on the Lighting 101 stuff at Strobist and see what you can achieve with just the above.

Anyone have any tips for post-processing? At the moment, I got through all the photos I've taken at that time (so, in the hundreds) and move them into a folder of files I class as good. This is a pain in the arse, some way of just ticking off each photo I like would save time. Then I load them all into Photoshop and go from there, that part is fine though.

Mainly the first part that annoys me, going through every photo and moving them one by one.

Lightroom.

It's an Adobe digital workflow manager and "darkroom" suite, that's great for managing and processing all your photos, and comes with all your basic post processing tools. None of the heavy editing stuff, but that's what photoshop is for.

I was looking at Lightroom just after posting that, heard about it on here before but thought it was just a stripped down Photoshop for Photographers, didn't know it had management stuff.

I'll have a look at it, cheers

Lightroom is excellent.

My workflow tends to go as follows -

-Import into a new folder with current date and topic as the title.
-Pick ones worth editing and give them a 4 star rating.
-Filter for 4 star rating.
-Edit one.
-Apply settings to the similar ones.
-Tweak.


Makes it very easy to edit a lot of Raw files relatively quickly. The things you can do in there are truly amazing.


Oh, and if you're not already, start shooting Raw now or you won't get the most out of Lightroom at all.

Opinions on the Canon EOS 1100D as a budget DSLR?