Christmas for an architect

[skateza]

My sister is in her second year of architecture.

She is in need of a camera, she says everyone else at her school has the canon XTi rebel. So i am thinking of purchasing this brand, but i do have some questions.

I am finding that i can get different types of packages off of ebay that come with flash, extra lenses, bigger cards and some extra gizmos. I'm curious as to what would be the best bang for the buck as far as extras. What do you think an architect would need?

 

[Sideburns]

do not get the ebay kits...they're junk.

She'll want something simple to start probably a 50mm 1.8 is a good start.

But if she gets serious, a tiltshift helps to straighten up parallax error...which could be a problem with buildings.

 

[skateza]

Where should i be looking to buy then?

And i take it a 50mm 1.8 is a lens?

Please note: I am camera illiterate.

 

[newrmdmike]

i buy from bhphotovideo.com super reliable. good prices. fast shipping.

the 50mm 1.8 is a lens.

i'm selling a d70s, its nikon, if you want to buy from me, you can get on keh.com and see what the going rate is for them if your interested.

 

[newrmdmike]

dpreview.com will tell you about different cameras and stuff if you want to see what else is available.

if she said "everyone else has" she means "i want" so it might make her happier to just get the canon.

the nikon d70s is a comparable cam, or if you buy new the d80.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Also, if others have the Canon (a prefectly fine choice) then her learning curve will be less steep.

A 50mm is not a sensible lens, look right now for a camera that comes with the kit lens - meaing the lens that is typically included with the camera. It might be a 17-55mm. It's not spectacular lens, but it's a perfectly fine place to start. I studied Architectural Photography, she's going to want something wider than 50mm. "Wide" is a camera term and denotes how much of a scene you can capture with the lens. Wide is important when shooting interiors. Don't go for a wide-angle "prime" or "fixed focal-length" (same thing) because she's going to want more flexibility. She gets that by having a zoom lens, denoted by the hyphenated mm numbers... such as 17-55mm or 17-85mm. The smaller the number, the wider the field-of-view. The higher the number, the more she can zoom in.

After all, she may want to shoot architecture, but she's also going to want to take pics of everyone at christmas. Make sure you charger her battery, and get her a 2 Gig memory card.