40D or D200?

[dufrenbk]

boblybill, your pics didnt show

 

[asfixiate]

D-50
have you compared your Sigma 70-200 2.8 to the Canon 70-200 2.8 at all? So far I've only heard that its not as fast as the canon but haven't heard any image quality issues.

 

[BoblyBill]

boblybill, your pics didnt show

You sure? I can see them fine... hmmm... anybody else having trouble seeing them?

 

[asfixiate]

worked fine for me. Nice shots too!

 

[dufrenbk]

ok boblybill, i saw them. yeh those are some nice shots. just about every pic i've seen with this lens is nice. sure it's not L quality, but i'm just getting into photography and don't have the money yet to go and spend thousands on lenses. when my wife graduates from nursing school and starts working... now thats a different story . as long as the 40D and the 18-55 and the 28-135 give me better pics than a point and shoot and even an advanced point and shoot (which i'm pretty sure it will), then i'll be happy.

 

[EOS_JD]

ok boblybill, i saw them. yeh those are some nice shots. just about every pic i've seen with this lens is nice. sure it's not L quality, but i'm just getting into photography and don't have the money yet to go and spend thousands on lenses. when my wife graduates from nursing school and starts working... now thats a different story . as long as the 40D and the 18-55 and the 28-135 give me better pics than a point and shoot and even an advanced point and shoot (which i'm pretty sure it will), then i'll be happy.

Being honest I have a feeling you may be disappointed at the start with this kit. The 40D is a great camera no doubt but the onboard flash is pretty poor and really benefits from a decent unit like the 430EX or 580EX.

The lenses you are looking at are pretty slow. They'll be fine in bright light but as soon as the light drops, shutter speeds fall and you need to start using a high ISO to maintain decent shutter speeds. In low light even ISO1600 will be unlikely to give a decent enough shutter speed particularly on the 28-135 as ytou need to maintain a ss of around 1/125 or higher.

Better to buy a couple of nice starter lens with a large fast maximum aperture. Also the lenses you have have duplicated focal lengths..... try and minimise this.

Look at the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 and possibly a 50mm f1.8. The 50mm 1.8 is over three stops faster than the 18-55 at 50mm. this means shutter speeds that are over 8x faster when the lenses are wide open!!! I always advise avoiding these slow lenses but appreciate they are cheap.

Buy the best you can to avoid selling later.

Then save to buy a 70-200 f4L and you'll have pretty much most of the useful range covered.

I also generally advise shooting RAW but you do need to spend a fair amount of time editing on the PC and straight out of the camera your images won't have the same punch as that of a compact. In your case, you may prefer shooting jpg and upping saturation and sharpness in camera until you are ready to make the leap to RAW.

JD