Re: Totally OT - cameral advice
- From: David Cantrell <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 13:25:54 +0100
On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 10:31:11AM +0100, Mike Hughes wrote:
Off to Canada in July. Would like to have (half) decent SLR digital
camera to take better photos than my present cheap digital takes.
Want to spend around 500GBP
would like one that doesn't eat batteries
Possibly rechargeable batteries via camera
Facility to add Interchangeable lenses at later date
some kind of 'antishake' device (is that what it's called?)
Any suggestions on make/model and where to get it from much appreciated.
Assuming that you don't already have lenses and so aren't wed to any
particular system, then either the Nikon D70, D40 or D50 (the first of
those that fits your other needs) or the Canon 300 or 350 (again, the
first of them that fits your needs). While partisans of both
manufacturers will extoll the virtues of their chosen system and not
consider the other, the truth of the matter is that both have many good
and few bad points. If you can, try both a Nikon and a Canon. The control
layout is slightly different and you should just go for whichever is
more comfortable in your hands.
Personally I prefer Nikon, solely because my D70 has seperate aperture
and shutter speed controls whereas the Canon I tried had one control
shared by the two functions. But the cheaper Nikons suffer from that
flaw too, and I *think* the more expensive Canons don't.
As someone else pointed out, the best antishake device is a tripod (you
*don't* generally need a cable release though). The second best is a
monopod. The two things to consider in a cheap tripod are height (does
it go high enough to suit your build, a particular problem I have at
6'3") and weight. You'll be carrying the damned thing around all the
time, so light is god.
I don't believe that either company sell a SLR body with built-in
anti-shake (and to be honest, I wouldn't want it - there are better,
cheaper ways of achieving that), but they do sell *lenses* with
anti-shake jibber-jabber in them. They are very expensive.
You'll generally get an option of buying the body with a cheap
general-purpose lens thrown in "for free" (yeah right), usually an
18-55, 18-70, or 18-120-ish zoom. These are actually pretty good
general-purpose lenses so don't be tempted to buy body and lens
seperately unless you know exactly what you need.
If you've got the budget for it, buy another lens, either something
around about 30mm for landscapes, or a longer zoom, depending on the
sort of thing you think you'll want to photograph.
If you have even more budget, get a super-wide zoom for landscapes
(Sigma do a very good 10-20mm job in both Nikon and Canon fittings) or a
50mm for portrait-ish photos.
Jessops is tolerable if you want to buy on the high street (personally
I'd use a smaller chain myself, with less chavvy staff), but also check
out camerapricebuster.co.uk for comparative prices online.
--
David Cantrell | Cake Smuggler Extraordinaire
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" -- H. L. Mencken
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