Holy crap, there are so many options... Choosing my first dslr...

[jim84]

Thanks for the suggestions. As far as I know, I'm picking up that Nikon I mentioned, the seller had to head out of town for some kind of family emergency I believe, but he should be back within a couple days and we have an agreement on his camera, so unless something changes I'm just waiting for him to come back to town.

 

[stephensphotos]

My advice to anyone who says they're wondering about cameras to buy is always the same: don't be more concerned with the camera body than you are with the lenses. So many people seem to concentrate more on the camera than on the lens for some reason, which is strange because it is the lens that affects things like sharpness, depth of field (in conjunction with size of camera format), width of aperture etc. My advice is that because digital camera technology has developed so far, you can not really buy a DSLR today that gives you poor image quality: obviously I am not comparing things like High ISO performance or framers per second that only the most expensive camera bodies have. These days, if you are shooting in normal lighting conditions and dont need to shoot at 5 or 6 frames per second, you are probably going to get pretty descent image quality with any camera you are using, even the cheapest camera bodies today have a resolution that is some multiple of a dozen megapixels which will always be more than you are going to need.

So my advice is to maybe buy a cheap second hand full frame camera body, such as the original Canon 5D or its Nikon equivalent, and buy the most expensive lens you can afford: the new Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM II is really good, but you will get more value for your money if you can get a good copy of the mark I version of that lens. From a professional's point of view, try the Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens, in terms of depth of field it will blow you away, in terms of sharpness you will struggle to find a "L" grade zoom lens equally as sharp.

I spent a long time saving for my Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 and my 70-200mm f/2.8, but I do not get as much value for money out of those two lenses as I do with my 50mm f/1.4 which was the last lens I bought. DONT FALL FOR THE COMMERCIAL HOOPLA that camera salesman preach and amateur photographers believe in, walk around with your crappy camera body and expensive high quality lens and concentrate more on image creation.

Stephen Williams Photography

 

[jim84]

One thing I was thinking of since I am looking at used is warranty. From what I can tell looking around, Nikon warranty is non transferable, also the warranty on the d3100 is 1 year. I doubt there would be much that would come up in that time frame, given a couple months are off that already and it's a relatively short warranty period. Further if something was to go wrong, due to abuse from the previous owner or if I damaged it, that's not something that would be covered anyways. So if things work out with this camera I'm waiting to hear back on, I can see if he did register his camera when he bought it... If not then I could do so possibly, for the remaining 9 or 10 months of warranty, but I don't think it's a big factor given the savings.. Does that sound about right?

I'm not sure what's going on with the seller though I haven't heard from him for a couple days, I'm not sure what the emergency was, but I'm sure it could be stressful and dealing with selling his camera is probably not on the top of his priority list... I emailed him and said just to get back to me when he has a chance.

 

[CAlbertson]

Thanks for your advice.

On the subject of rolling shutter, I'm not sure how the image sensor works. I know with a dslr, the mirror shoots the image up to the prism, then to my eye, and the mirror moves out of the way when the picture is taken allowing the light to the sensor. What you are saying is that with a photo, the entire sensor is exposed at the same time (this would depend on the shutter, since it doesn't vanish, it moves, exposing certain parts first?) and then after the shutter is closed, the image is read? Rather than it being read as it's exposed, from top to bottom? This is something I don't know a lot about, but I know shows up in photos on cheaper cameras, and in video as well. I assume in most cases it wouldn't be an issue in general. I did see it in videos taken with the d3100....

The image is red out after the shutter closes. But motion blurr can happen what the shutter is open.

The shuter has two "curtains" one opens by moving from the top down then a second shutter curtain follows it at the same speed by (say) 1/60th of a second (assuming the shutter speed is set for 1/60th. At slow speeds (below about 1/250th or 1/500th on the better cameras) there is a time when the entire sensor is exposed to the same light. At fast speeds the second curtain starts before the first one hits bottom and you have in effect a moving slit. The fastest time when the entire sensor is exposed is called the "flash sync speed"

YES you can get the "jello" effect but with an SLR this all is very fast. As I said this is the same way it works with film. You can get blur caused by camera shake but it you keep the shutter faster than abut 1/(lens focal length) you will not get much blur. A flash effectively makes the exposure VERY fast and VR/IS lens can change the rule to 1/(two times lens FL)

All this applies to film. You can get blurred and distorted images with an SLR. It's easy.