d3000 vs eos1000d vs e520 vs a350 vs a330

ionut · Jan 30, 2010

I have a choice of the following cameras together with kit lenses at the specified prices:

Nikon d3000, 18-55mm lens - 677$ (Vibration Reduction -> lens based)
Canon EOS 1000d, 18-55mm lens - 628$ ( ->no IS at all)
Olympus e520, 18-42mm lens - 609$ (Image Stabilization -> body based)
Sony Alpha 350, 18-70mm lens - 677$ (SteadyShot -> body based)
Sony Alpha 330, 18-55mm lens - 677$ (SteadyShot -> body based)

Which should I get and why? I am curious about image quality comparisons at different iso speeds, quality of the view finder, lens quality, effectiveness of image stabilization etc. (generally stuff I can't find out from reading just the specs), but every opinion has it's place! The more the merrier ...
The thing is, I am buying them off a website in my country, so I can't try them before I buy them, and if some of you guys own or have tried any of the cameras, preferably more than one, please speak up!
For now, I am most keen on the Sony Alpha 350, because, since they don't make it anymore, the price has dropped in order for it to be replaced with the Alpha 380, which seemingly brings nothing new besides a different (not necessarily better) body design, and replaces CF cards with SD cards. It also has the richest specs from all the five options!
I hate the Canon the most, because it has no stabilization at all...

Garbz · Jan 30, 2010

So why not go to a local photo store and hold them there. Form your own opinion on each, and then go buy online. They are all very similar in quality so buy whichever you feel comfortable with. All you're going to get here is opinions, so here's mine:

Sony are the scum of the electronics industry. Even if the cameras were better than any of the others I wouldn't buy it.
My Girlfriend has an Olympus e430 It's a good little camera, and the 520 will be a good camera too.
A friend recently bought a Canon 1000d and he's over the moon happy with it as well.
I say go for the D3000 because I use Nikons.

C-Towner · Jan 30, 2010

I think those cameras are all in a similar range of quality, and I agree that how the camera feels in your hand is going to be more important than small differences in quality.

With Nikon and Canon, you have the ability to buy a large amount of legacy glass on the cheap, which is a nice perk. Olympus offers some very excellent kit glass that does not leave you immediately wanting new lenses, and are very small and light (which can work both ways, so thats preference). I dont have much experience with Sony SLRs, but price can be a huge motivator, so your wallet might do the talking for you on that one.

If quality was equal on all of them, which features do you think are most important? I would try to use thinking like that to narrow the list down based on features to see which offers the most bang for the buck for your needs.

ionut · Jan 31, 2010

well yes guys, i'd buy the a350, but this site here Sony Alpha A350 Compared to Nikon D80 kind of bashes it. i don't know if it's biased or anything but they seem to have done some quite thorough testing...
i mean, i want live view and a fancy tilting screen, but if the viewfinder sucks, it's a showstopper. i only wanted live view BECAUSE of the tilting screen, which would allow you to shoot in weird positions. i want to do most of my shooting through the view finder so i'd like a large bright one. I'm using a film nikon fm-10 at the moment, and when a friend let me try his eos400d, the image in the viewfinder was really small.. i dislike that.
i want 14mpx instead of 10, but if that does not bring much image quality, and instead results in higher noise at high ISO, and also makes the image quality degrade at the edges because of the general poor quality of kit lenses then i don't want it...
i want body based image stabilization, so it can work with any lens, but if it is much worse than lens based IS then i'd rather have it lens based....
Another thing i want is to later buy a lens that goes up to 200mm. I can get a Tamron lens for Sony for about 170$, and the kit lens also has the most zoom between all the other cameras. The cheapest vr lens from nikon that has 200mm is about 270$...
i guess what i really want to know is, is the sony a350 as good as the specs say, or is it as bad as the review says? are all the flaws pointed out in that review as bad as they sound? if yes, then i have a hard time choosing between the olympus e520 and the d3000...

i can also get the a230 for 460$ with an 18-55mm lens. how about that? i could then buy a Tamron lens for it right now! it has body based image stabilization, 10mpx, no live view and no tilting screen. it also has no warranty... i mean 30 days warranty. it's actually bought by someone and never used...

what i dislike about the d3000 is that besides the lack of IS in the camera, it also relies on an auto focus motor in the lens... does the e520 feature a motor?

man, it's sooo hard.... decisions decisions

C-Towner · Jan 31, 2010

You might want to look at the Oly E520 twin kens kit. It comes with a 14-42mm and a 40-150mm kens(EFL of 28-300mm in film field if view).

Be careful that when you buy lenses, you get what you pay for, and you may be dissatisfied with most lenses costing less than $200(exception usually being a 50mm prime).

Can I ask why you want 14MP? Your biggest advantage there would be more huge print sizes and the ability to crop more judiciously in post. If you are going to be posting images here and on sites like flickr, megapixels won't really matter much at all, since most people will only be viewing your photos at 25% of their true resolution.

Be aware also that *most* crop sensor SLRs will have relatively small viewfinders that are not as bright. I fear looking through a film SLRs VF may have spoiled you for entrly level DSLRs.

Stamp · Jan 31, 2010

I use the A230, and am very happy with it. It's easy to find older Minolta lenses that'll work, and with the IS in the body, you can get the lenses for relatively cheap. The only thing that I learned to get used to on the Alpha, was the sawed off grip, and I actually prefer the location of the shutter release button vs the canons and nikons.

I'm not sure why Garbz said what he did about Sony, but Sony has always been known for quality in anything they do, and quality is more important to me than a name.

Looks like Adorama has them for $405... DSLRA230L Sony (alpha) A230 10.2 Megapixel DSLR Camera with 18-55mm SAM Kit Lens Best deal out there as far as I'm concerned.

Garbz · Feb 1, 2010

Sony has in the past been known about quality. These days they are known for chasing the quick buck at all costs, whether it would be

replacing high end audio divisions with cheap crap 7.2 and 10.2 surround sound systems,
putting software on their music CDs which effectively amounted to something worse and harder to get rid of than malware, denying it, and then exposing consumers to severe exploits that bypassed a lot of antivirus software because of it,
seeing their competitor make a high def version of the CD so throwing money at the problem to create a format that is so screwed up that it would require mastering studios to replace all their existing high end equipment,
seeing their competitor make a high def dvd and so throwing money at the problem to create a format so screwed up that early adopters now can't play the products, people who waited a little longer needed firmware updates, and even late adopters now buy products like Ironman Bluray only to find that for some 15min they can't play it because the spec is rushed ill-defined, and doesn't seem to understand that an internet connection shouldn't be mandatory to watch a movie,
creating an game console that comes crippled out of the factory with only 7 of 8 cores running and giving no indication to the consumer if they received a lemon or not, has a tendency to break down, but unlike the big brother xbox, not admitting the problem that affects a percentage is a manufacturing fault and instead offering to charge customers $130 just to look at the damn thing, not even considering the potential costs to fix it.

Then there's the customer service issues. Apparently using a power board voids your warranty on a PS3, so does not connecting it to a tv with a HDMI cable, oh and so does dust.

Let me say one thing though. The Sony line of cameras are great. I have used them and have colleges at work who are more than happy with them.

It's Sony the company I can't get behind, and if this post even convinces one person to google around and find out the crap that they have pulled over the last 20 years that has turned them from being the one brand everyone relied on to the crap they pull today, then I will be happy.

photograham · Feb 1, 2010

Wow $405 at adorama is a pretty good deal

ionut · Feb 2, 2010

So I've defeated my salesman phobia and went and checked out the cameras in different shops. I've also read a giant bunch of reviews, and of course everyone's replies to this thread. That makes the Nikon D3000, the Sony Alpha 230 and the Olympus e-520 the top three contenders:
* sharing 1st place are the d3000 and the a230
* 2nd place goes to the e-520 because of a little bit smaller viewfinder and the smaller sensor which apparently is a little noisier at higher ISO

I've decided to go for the a230 because it's the cheapest of all cameras. I'm getting it sometime this week.

Garbz, i agree with you but all corporations are evil. I mean I use Linux because (well not only, I've got other reasons too) of my grudge against Microsoft so I can understand what you're talking about. When profit dictates what you do, it's not going too be about good quality unless you have to. But Sony are the under-dog in the camera busyness, so they kind of have to... I've decided on the a230 because it delivers the most bang for my buck, I hope it does not offend you :blushing:

I would like to thank everyone for their taking the time to answer me, I am very grateful! :mrgreen: :thumbup:

(whoooah, emoticon overload)

Stamp · Feb 2, 2010

ionut, you won't be disappointed. Although, I remembered you said this earlier, you want a tiltable screen with live view, and the A230 doesn't offer it (I don't think the D3000 does either). Have you given up on that? When shopping for mine, I didn't find that feature a necessity, and I've only been in a position to where it'd be nice to have once or twice.

Garbz · Feb 2, 2010

Offend me? Heck no. You're free to make up your mind, and I'm sure you'll enjoy the Sony. It's a good camera.

This vendetta against them is my own

Also profit is only part of an equation. If Sony screw customers in the photography industry they'll find professional photographers far less forgiving than say a kid with a dud PS3 (not that they may, they seem to be going rather well in the DSLR camp). Being professional in many businesses is an overriding rule to get ahead.

C-Towner · Feb 2, 2010

Im glad you made a choice you are happy with! Actually handling the cameras is a huge thing that some people forget about when checking specs online, so it is good you got out there to see what you have been reading about and looking at before making your choice.

Dao · Feb 2, 2010

Garbz said:
Offend me? Heck no. You're free to make up your mind, and I'm sure you'll enjoy the Sony. It's a good camera.

This vendetta against them is my own
Also profit is only part of an equation. If Sony screw customers in the photography industry they'll find professional photographers far less forgiving than say a kid with a dud PS3 (not that they may, they seem to be going rather well in the DSLR camp). Being professional in many businesses is an overriding rule to get ahead.

Garbz,

You remind me of one time, I accidentally dropped 2 computer CD-ROM drives (yes .. awhile back) from the desk to the carpet floor. One was made by Sony and the other one was made by Matsu****a (Parental company of Panasonic). I picked them up and on the outside, both CD-ROMs looked just fine. Then I checked them out and made sure they were working. Sure enough. The Sony did not work.

I opened the Sony CD-ROM drive and found that 4 plastic gears broke into 2 halves. I mean the plastic was so cheap and brittle that they broke. I think I can just break them with my bare hand.

And so I opened the Matsu****a CD-ROM just to check it. And what a big different. There are more stuff inside and the plastic were a lot stronger (it looks and feels that way).

From the outside, you just could not tell which one is better. It is like PC power supply. When you open it up, you can tell a quality PS vs a cheap PS.

Of course, I do not mean Sony Camera are bad. In fact, if I do not own any DSLR and in the market of buying one, I will look at Canon, Nikon and Sony cameras as well.

Edit: The forum mask out the name of the Panasonic parent company M a t s u s h i t a !

ionut · Feb 2, 2010

Stamp said:
ionut, you won't be disappointed. Although, I remembered you said this earlier, you want a tiltable screen with live view, and the A230 doesn't offer it (I don't think the D3000 does either). Have you given up on that? When shopping for mine, I didn't find that feature a necessity, and I've only been in a position to where it'd be nice to have once or twice.

I think you got me wrong... by "want" i meant i'd prefer having it against not having it, i had use for it, but it wasn't a crucial feature for me... maybe i should have used "like" instead (forgive me as i am not a native English speaker)

Neither the d3000 nor the a230 have a live view function, unlike the eos1000d or the olympus e-520, but as i have said earlier i find no use in live view as is, but i liked the possibility of shooting from high and low angles that a tiltable screen provides, and of course you need live view for that. The quality of the viewfinder is much more important to me, and so the a230 and the d3000 provided that.

The same "prefer but not actually need" relationship was also present in the 14 vs 10 mpx statement i made.

I'll be back with impressions of the camera once it arrives and i'll have the possibility to try it out more than i did in the store. Thank you everyone again!