First DSLR

dveenhuis · Jul 28, 2008

I've been researching for about a week for an entry level DSLR. I was torn between Nikon D40, Canon XTI and Sony. My winner, I think, is Sony alpha A300. I think the live view did it for me. I believe I would use it when the camera is on the tripod. Also, I am very tall and when taking pictures of other people, I am always taking them from above their heads. I think I would use the live view with the camera at a lower level.

I'm going to add a 70-300 zoom right away to the 18-70 kit lens. The Sony lens is $229. There is a comparable Quantaray for $149 at Ritz. Any thoughts or recommendations for the camera or lens.

soylentgreen · Jul 28, 2008

Before deciding, try going to the local store and handling each camera. Ergonomics play a large role in camera choices. Also research into the type of photography you will eventually like to do. That will determine the sort of lens purchases you are likely to make in the future and the ones available from the manufacturers and their price range. Start with a decent wide-angle and go from there. On a crop sensor body anything from 17-55mm will suffice. The 70-300 is a good standard zoom lens that many prefer. All major brands produce at least a couple of variations in different quality ranges. See what sort of image quality you desire and pay accordingly. As far as lenses are concerned, you pay for what you get. The camera is of little consequence if the lens is of poor quality. BTW, the Quantray is a pretty poor lens. Save your money for something better.

zapman29 · Jul 29, 2008

well that sony got good reviews, but why not the new canon xsi or 40D they both have the live view and with a whole selection of lens... JMHO

dveenhuis · Jul 29, 2008

I liked the Canons as well but the Sony better suited my budget.

Overread · Jul 29, 2008

Liveview is a good feature to have, but a little overrated when it comes to DSLRs I find. When you have a DSLR and a good lump of glass on it it tends to be rather heavy - not impossibly heavy, but a noticable increase from a point and shoot. This makes liveview a little tricky to shoot with as when you arms are extended out to use the liveview you will get more camera shake than if you are shooting from closer to your body and using the viewfinder (which also operates by a mirror (most times) which means you see directly what the sensor will see rather than just a general show of the area.

Definatly consider what Soylent has said, most DSLR bodies are very similar in features at set price ranges, its the lenses on offer that are the big difference - important if you do have a specific area of interset that you want to be able to focus on

As for the newer bodies - the XSI for canon I would (personally) avoid that body as I tend to shoot a lot of movment shots (wildlife mainly) which means I need my frames per second and the XTi has a greater speed of frames over the XSI - which loses frames per second at a gain of MP size - a camera I would recoment heartily if you were a landscape shooter or going for only static shots - shots where you don't need speed of frames per second to capture motion. On from that the XSI is more noisy (result of more MP) than the XTi which is also considered more noisy again than the XT - in the end the noise reduction is good in the range, but I think XSI is pushing the limits a bit.

zapman29 · Jul 30, 2008

[
As for the newer bodies - the XSI for canon I would (personally) avoid that body as I tend to shoot a lot of movment shots (wildlife mainly) which means I need my frames per second and the XTi has a greater speed of frames over the XSI - which loses frames per second at a gain of MP size - a camera I would recoment heartily if you were a landscape shooter or going for only static shots - shots where you don't need speed of frames per second to capture motion. On from that the XSI is more noisy (result of more MP) than the XTi which is also considered more noisy again than the XT - in the end the noise reduction is good in the range, but I think XSI is pushing the limits a bit.[/quote]

Well i was wondering where those statments are coming from. The canon specs say that the XSI FPS is faster than the XSI?

Overread · Jul 30, 2008

The XSI might have a faster max shutter speed - but it has reduced frames per second than the XTI -- the speed of shutter is not the limiting factor - its the fact that the increase in mega pixels means each photo is now larger in filesize and the buffer of the XSI has not been increased in proportion to the filesize boost. The result is that whilst the camera might be able to shoot faster, it can't store up as many frames as the lower models in its memory.