Camera Shopping- Need Recommendations

[TriPaC87]

Price isn't really an issue. I want to narrow it down to a few cameras and then I will research each camera and start shopping.

Nikon D3x .... now price IS an issue.

best to think of a realistic total budget.
Camera
a lens or two
tripod
camera bag

but there's plenty of good recommendations above

Go to a store and play with them to see how they feel in your hand and whether you think you can understand the menu system or not.
Nikon, Sony, Canon, etc depending upon how much you want to spend.

I have many tripods and a camera bag already. I want my money to go to an awesome camera and a lense that will get me through the initial "learning the camera" phase. Then I will buy more lenses.

 

[Bulb]

If price isn't an issue then I would recommend the Canon 1D C with Canon EF 24-70 f/2L, Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L, and Canon EF 100mm f/2L macro lens.

 

[goodguy]

This is exactly what I needed to hear! I am leaning towards the Nikon. A friend of mine has the D7100 and he loves it.

I own the Nikon D7100 and as I wrote already I think its currently the best crop sensor camera you can get.
I love my D7100 fantastic image quality, with the right lenses you will be amazed at the results you are going to get.
You will find that lenses can be very expensive, it will depend on what you are looking for and how high you want to go price wise.
There are some very resonably priced lenses that will give you excellent results, to make it easier on the pocket I bought used lenses, all my lenses today are used. The lenses I bought brand new I sold.

Few lenses to consider are

Nikon 18-105mm VR
Or
Nikon 18-140mm VR

These are the kit lens for everyday use, they give nice quality pictures for the beginner and medium experienced user
For telezoom I would recommend the Nikon 70-300mm VR, excellent lens for the price, it will give you a lot of zoom and very good picture quality for the price.
For primes I would recommend the Nikon 50mm 1.8G and maybe even the Nikon 85mm 1.8G
The 50mm is an excellent lens for many things, night photography, portraits and general use.
The 85mm 1.8G is considered Nikon second most sharpest lens so the picture quality on it is fantastic but it is not so wide so it will be fantastic for portraits but limited for landscape photography or indoor use.

These lenses are good basic starter lenses, if you want to get the best then the lenses I would recommend are

Nikon 24-70mm 2.8
Nikon 70-200mm VR

These 2 lenses will cost yuo almost 2000$ each as they are pro lenses but the quality on them is second to none.
There are lots of lenses to choose from some third party that actually can be very good, you will need to decide what you want and then go for it.

 

[astroNikon]

This is exactly what I needed to hear! I am leaning towards the Nikon. A friend of mine has the D7100 and he loves it.

I own the Nikon D7100 and as I wrote already I think its currently the best crop sensor camera you can get.
I love my D7100 fantastic image quality, with the right lenses you will be amazed at the results you are going to get.
You will find that lenses can be very expensive, it will depend on what you are looking for and how high you want to go price wise.
There are some very resonably priced lenses that will give you excellent results, to make it easier on the pocket I bought used lenses, all my lenses today are used. The lenses I bought brand new I sold.

Few lenses to consider are

Nikon 18-105mm VR
Or
Nikon 18-140mm VR

These are the kit lens for everyday use, they give nice quality pictures for the beginner and medium experienced user
For telezoom I would recommend the Nikon 70-300mm VR, excellent lens for the price, it will give you a lot of zoom and very good picture quality for the price.
For primes I would recommend the Nikon 50mm 1.8G and maybe even the Nikon 85mm 1.8G
The 50mm is an excellent lens for many things, night photography, portraits and general use.
The 85mm 1.8G is considered Nikon second most sharpest lens so the picture quality on it is fantastic but it is not so wide so it will be fantastic for portraits but limited for landscape photography or indoor use.

These lenses are good basic starter lenses, if you want to get the best then the lenses I would recommend are

Nikon 24-70mm 2.8
Nikon 70-200mm VR

These 2 lenses will cost yuo almost 2000$ each as they are pro lenses but the quality on them is second to none.
There are lots of lenses to choose from some third party that actually can be very good, you will need to decide what you want and then go for it.

I totally agree with him .. well, nearly.

Except the *best* dSLR is the one that I'm using (<-- quote stolen from Derrel), which happens to be a Nikon d7000
but the d7100 has better, newer specifications.

 

[bschmidt25]

Still, a D7000, a last-generation body paired up with one of Nikon's VERY-newest lenses, the 18-140mm zoom, for $799 sounds like a tremendous deal to me, it really does.

+1. I purchased a D5100 with the 18-55mm just after Christmas last year and got a tremendous deal on it ($479). I loved everything about the D7000, but the D7100 wasn't quite out yet, so it was significantly more expensive than the D5100 and I just couldn't justify it. At $799 with the 18-140mm zoom, I'd be snapping that up over the D5100. One benefit of the D7x00 is that you can use the older D lenses on them and still have autofocus. That saves you ~$100 on the 50mm alone and much more when you're looking at others. The D5x00 and D3x00 need the more expensive G lenses to autofocus.

 

[TriPaC87]

All of this is great info. Thanks a lot. I went to Best Buy tonight and played around with 6 or 7 cameras... Nikons and Canons. The salesman that I talked with has a T5i so he obviously wanted to steer me in that direction. He admitted that he had never shot with a Nikon. He made a few points he made were that the Canons have a more "user friendly interface" and the "touch screen and swivel are nice". I didn't find the Canon interface any more or less easy than the Nikon. It seemed sort of like an iPhone vs a Blackberry. (But that's coming from a newbie, so I could be wrong.) I like the way the D7000 feels in my hand and where the controls are on the camera. I don't mind that it doesn't have a touch screen... mostly bc I'm a little OCD about finger prints on screens and I prefer buttons.

I polled some friends on FB and I'm finding that most of my friends that have DSLR's that aren't professionals say "I love my Canon/Nikon" but can't tell me why or give me any advice. I'm assuming this is because they have never touched any other DSLR. The few friends of mine that are professionals that did speak up said to "close my eyes and pick one" and spend my money on lenses, not the body. And I'm actually very surprised by the few professionals that would not give me their opinion! I have at least 10 professional photographer friends and only two spoke up. (I might add that they don't live near me and they know I would never take any of their work.)

I'm leaning towards the D7000 from Best Buy because it's a great deal and the lense seems like a good start for a beginner.

 

[robbins.photo]

All of this is great info. Thanks a lot. I went to Best Buy tonight and played around with 6 or 7 cameras... Nikons and Canons. The salesman that I talked with has a T5i so he obviously wanted to steer me in that direction. He admitted that he had never shot with a Nikon. He made a few points he made were that the Canons have a more "user friendly interface" and the "touch screen and swivel are nice". I didn't find the Canon interface any more or less easy than the Nikon. It seemed sort of like an iPhone vs a Blackberry. (But that's coming from a newbie, so I could be wrong.) I like the way the D7000 feels in my hand and where the controls are on the camera. I don't mind that it doesn't have a touch screen... mostly bc I'm a little OCD about finger prints on screens and I prefer buttons.

I polled some friends on FB and I'm finding that most of my friends that have DSLR's that aren't professionals say "I love my Canon/Nikon" but can't tell me why or give me any advice. I'm assuming this is because they have never touched any other DSLR. The few friends of mine that are professionals that did speak up said to "close my eyes and pick one" and spend my money on lenses, not the body. And I'm actually very surprised by the few professionals that would not give me their opinion! I have at least 10 professional photographer friends and only two spoke up. (I might add that they don't live near me and they know I would never take any of their work.)

I'm leaning towards the D7000 from Best Buy because it's a great deal and the lense seems like a good start for a beginner.

If you have the budget for it I would recommend it, the D7000 is a great camera. I'll most likely be upgrading myself as soon as the budget permits, don't get me wrong I really love my D5100 but the 7x series has a lot of really great features that I would love to have. As to the T5i, even though it's sensor is a little higher resolution (17mp vrs 16mp) the Nikon D7000 actually produces much better images, with a much better dynamic range and color depth the image quality is roughly about 30% better all other things being equal.

The autofocus system on the Nikon is much, much better than the T5i, with 39 focus points as opposed to the T5i's 9. And while the T5i has a better boost ISO for lowlight, I think of the two the 7000 actually has the edge in lowlight performance because it's noise reduction is much better at high ISO than the T5i. The D7000 shoots faster (6 frames per sec as opposed to the Canon's 5 fps) - so really the only advantage the T5i really has is in the video category, it shoots video at a little higher frame rate and features the phase detection for video - but really unless your going to be shooting a ton of video I don't really see this as much of an advantage.

The other advantages of the T5i would be the articulating screen, touch screen interface and in camera HDR. The articulating screen can be nice for framing shots at odd angles but I've never found it to be a make or break feature myself. The touch screen interface? Well this again is something that's up to each individual user - but me, I don't want a camera with touch screen. I generally put the camera up to my face to shoot using the viewfinder, and I can see time and time again activating some menu feature by brushing the screen, etc... sounds like a real nightmare to me personally. That and I've never liked small touch screens myself, I have large hands and have the devil of a time using a small touch screen. Other people love them and you might be more predisposed to consider a touch screen an advantage, me I just hope and pray Nikon keeps making cameras without them.

 

[TriPaC87]

All of this is great info. Thanks a lot. I went to Best Buy tonight and played around with 6 or 7 cameras... Nikons and Canons. The salesman that I talked with has a T5i so he obviously wanted to steer me in that direction. He admitted that he had never shot with a Nikon. He made a few points he made were that the Canons have a more "user friendly interface" and the "touch screen and swivel are nice". I didn't find the Canon interface any more or less easy than the Nikon. It seemed sort of like an iPhone vs a Blackberry. (But that's coming from a newbie, so I could be wrong.) I like the way the D7000 feels in my hand and where the controls are on the camera. I don't mind that it doesn't have a touch screen... mostly bc I'm a little OCD about finger prints on screens and I prefer buttons.

I polled some friends on FB and I'm finding that most of my friends that have DSLR's that aren't professionals say "I love my Canon/Nikon" but can't tell me why or give me any advice. I'm assuming this is because they have never touched any other DSLR. The few friends of mine that are professionals that did speak up said to "close my eyes and pick one" and spend my money on lenses, not the body. And I'm actually very surprised by the few professionals that would not give me their opinion! I have at least 10 professional photographer friends and only two spoke up. (I might add that they don't live near me and they know I would never take any of their work.)

I'm leaning towards the D7000 from Best Buy because it's a great deal and the lense seems like a good start for a beginner.

If you have the budget for it I would recommend it, the D7000 is a great camera. I'll most likely be upgrading myself as soon as the budget permits, don't get me wrong I really love my D5100 but the 7x series has a lot of really great features that I would love to have. As to the T5i, even though it's sensor is a little higher resolution (17mp vrs 16mp) the Nikon D7000 actually produces much better images, with a much better dynamic range and color depth the image quality is roughly about 30% better all other things being equal.

The autofocus system on the Nikon is much, much better than the T5i, with 39 focus points as opposed to the T5i's 9. And while the T5i has a better boost ISO for lowlight, I think of the two the 7000 actually has the edge in lowlight performance because it's noise reduction is much better at high ISO than the T5i. The D7000 shoots faster (6 frames per sec as opposed to the Canon's 5 fps) - so really the only advantage the T5i really has is in the video category, it shoots video at a little higher frame rate and features the phase detection for video - but really unless your going to be shooting a ton of video I don't really see this as much of an advantage.

The other advantages of the T5i would be the articulating screen, touch screen interface and in camera HDR. The articulating screen can be nice for framing shots at odd angles but I've never found it to be a make or break feature myself. The touch screen interface? Well this again is something that's up to each individual user - but me, I don't want a camera with touch screen. I generally put the camera up to my face to shoot using the viewfinder, and I can see time and time again activating some menu feature by brushing the screen, etc... sounds like a real nightmare to me personally. That and I've never liked small touch screens myself, I have large hands and have the devil of a time using a small touch screen. Other people love them and you might be more predisposed to consider a touch screen an advantage, me I just hope and pray Nikon keeps making cameras without them.

All great info that continues to steer me towards the D7000. Thank you!!

 

[robbins.photo]

All of this is great info. Thanks a lot. I went to Best Buy tonight and played around with 6 or 7 cameras... Nikons and Canons. The salesman that I talked with has a T5i so he obviously wanted to steer me in that direction. He admitted that he had never shot with a Nikon. He made a few points he made were that the Canons have a more "user friendly interface" and the "touch screen and swivel are nice". I didn't find the Canon interface any more or less easy than the Nikon. It seemed sort of like an iPhone vs a Blackberry. (But that's coming from a newbie, so I could be wrong.) I like the way the D7000 feels in my hand and where the controls are on the camera. I don't mind that it doesn't have a touch screen... mostly bc I'm a little OCD about finger prints on screens and I prefer buttons.

I polled some friends on FB and I'm finding that most of my friends that have DSLR's that aren't professionals say "I love my Canon/Nikon" but can't tell me why or give me any advice. I'm assuming this is because they have never touched any other DSLR. The few friends of mine that are professionals that did speak up said to "close my eyes and pick one" and spend my money on lenses, not the body. And I'm actually very surprised by the few professionals that would not give me their opinion! I have at least 10 professional photographer friends and only two spoke up. (I might add that they don't live near me and they know I would never take any of their work.)

I'm leaning towards the D7000 from Best Buy because it's a great deal and the lense seems like a good start for a beginner.

If you have the budget for it I would recommend it, the D7000 is a great camera. I'll most likely be upgrading myself as soon as the budget permits, don't get me wrong I really love my D5100 but the 7x series has a lot of really great features that I would love to have. As to the T5i, even though it's sensor is a little higher resolution (17mp vrs 16mp) the Nikon D7000 actually produces much better images, with a much better dynamic range and color depth the image quality is roughly about 30% better all other things being equal.

The autofocus system on the Nikon is much, much better than the T5i, with 39 focus points as opposed to the T5i's 9. And while the T5i has a better boost ISO for lowlight, I think of the two the 7000 actually has the edge in lowlight performance because it's noise reduction is much better at high ISO than the T5i. The D7000 shoots faster (6 frames per sec as opposed to the Canon's 5 fps) - so really the only advantage the T5i really has is in the video category, it shoots video at a little higher frame rate and features the phase detection for video - but really unless your going to be shooting a ton of video I don't really see this as much of an advantage.

The other advantages of the T5i would be the articulating screen, touch screen interface and in camera HDR. The articulating screen can be nice for framing shots at odd angles but I've never found it to be a make or break feature myself. The touch screen interface? Well this again is something that's up to each individual user - but me, I don't want a camera with touch screen. I generally put the camera up to my face to shoot using the viewfinder, and I can see time and time again activating some menu feature by brushing the screen, etc... sounds like a real nightmare to me personally. That and I've never liked small touch screens myself, I have large hands and have the devil of a time using a small touch screen. Other people love them and you might be more predisposed to consider a touch screen an advantage, me I just hope and pray Nikon keeps making cameras without them.

All great info that continues to steer me towards the D7000. Thank you!!

No worries, happy to help. At the bottom of my messages in the signature line I have a link to my flickr account, if you'd like you can go there by click on the red text and take a look at some of the images I've taken with the D5100, it will give you a fairly good idea as to the kind of image quality you can expect.

 

[bschmidt25]

All of this is great info. Thanks a lot. I went to Best Buy tonight and played around with 6 or 7 cameras... Nikons and Canons. The salesman that I talked with has a T5i so he obviously wanted to steer me in that direction. He admitted that he had never shot with a Nikon. He made a few points he made were that the Canons have a more "user friendly interface" and the "touch screen and swivel are nice". I didn't find the Canon interface any more or less easy than the Nikon. It seemed sort of like an iPhone vs a Blackberry. (But that's coming from a newbie, so I could be wrong.) I like the way the D7000 feels in my hand and where the controls are on the camera. I don't mind that it doesn't have a touch screen... mostly bc I'm a little OCD about finger prints on screens and I prefer buttons.

I polled some friends on FB and I'm finding that most of my friends that have DSLR's that aren't professionals say "I love my Canon/Nikon" but can't tell me why or give me any advice. I'm assuming this is because they have never touched any other DSLR. The few friends of mine that are professionals that did speak up said to "close my eyes and pick one" and spend my money on lenses, not the body. And I'm actually very surprised by the few professionals that would not give me their opinion! I have at least 10 professional photographer friends and only two spoke up. (I might add that they don't live near me and they know I would never take any of their work.)

I'm leaning towards the D7000 from Best Buy because it's a great deal and the lense seems like a good start for a beginner.

For me it came down to which one was easier for me to operate and handle. I have bigger hands. I had used a few Canons in the past and never really felt comfortable with them. The Nikons just seemed more natural in hand and the controls more logical. I'm not saying Nikon > Canon, just that they worked better for me. I think the reason the pros you talked to won't bash the other is because they know both make a fine product. (Not to mention they don't want to start a never ending debate :mrgreen. I think it's really a matter of preference. It didn't take me more than a few minutes to know which one I liked better...

 

[lambertpix]

I think the reason the pros you talked to won't bash the other is because they know both make a fine product.

I hope so -- that's very true. I'm not sure I can articulate why I gravitated to Canon vs. Nikon, but the controls seemed to feel more natural for me. At the time I bought mine, the Nikons had a more graphical UI that showed a little picture of aperture blades when you changed that setting, etc., that I thought would probably be really helpful for someone who didn't understand what those settings did, but I recall feeling like the settings I change all the time were really easy to change on the Canon (with dedicated buttons where I could find them) vs. buried in a menu on the Nikon.

I'm sure all this has changed since I shopped, but if possible, try to get a feeling for that sort of thing when you're shopping, because you want your camera body to help you shoot -- not fight you every time you want to change settings. Looking back, for instance, one of the things I really didn't appreciate at the time I was shopping were the "custom" settings on the main dial -- now, you'd have to pry them out of my cold, dead hands.

 

[astroNikon]

The Nikon just felt better in my hands than the comparable Canon too. But all that is a personal thing. Every one is different.

Plus some features that I needed, from my research back then, required me to spend another $400 to get it in the Canon. But that was a year ago now, and the offerings have changed.