Hello from Philadelphia

PhillyPhoton · Dec 31, 2010

Hello everybody and happy new year!
In a nutshell: was heavy into photography in my teens: Minolta XG-7 (showing my age), dark room in the basement. Loved to do alot of long exposure and capture high speed stuff, at the time shot pretty much in B&W cause color was way too expensive. So now looking for a good all around for all of the aboove as well as family stuff. Got it narrowed down to:
Nikon D90
Canon EOS 50D
Canon EOS 60D
Canon 7D
Nikon D7000
Thinking that Im gonna want video even thought I may not use it alot so may rule out the 50D, still waiting to see if there is any type of price decrease after the new year. Gonna take the advice of the forum and go look and see how they feel. Love the forum, has been really helpful, love looking at everybody's pics, fun stuff.

ajkramer87 · Dec 31, 2010

Because I shoot nikon Id say the D7000. Its going to have better video than the D90, along with many other things. Its the better of the 2 nikons you listed.

KenC · Dec 31, 2010

First of all, welcome from someone else in Philly! It's a great area for photography and everything else as well.

I'm also a converted film shooter, currently using a Canon Rebel XTi and also a G11. I'm not pushing Canon over Nikon; I just found my way into Canon sort of haphazardly and don't believe they are that different. I'm not sure what kind of "high speed stuff" you are doing and whether you want better AF like the 7D offers. If you don't really need super-fast AF, the Canon T2i is probably just about as good in terms of noise at high ISO as the 60D or 7D and is supposed to have very good video capability (don't do any myself). I'm sure if you look at the comparable Nikons they will be similar. Another consideration is that if you are going to carry gear with you, there is a big jump in size and weight from the Rebels to the higher models.

PhillyPhoton · Dec 31, 2010

KenC said:
First of all, welcome from someone else in Philly! It's a great area for photography and everything else as well.

I'm also a converted film shooter, currently using a Canon Rebel XTi and also a G11. I'm not pushing Canon over Nikon; I just found my way into Canon sort of haphazardly and don't believe they are that different. I'm not sure what kind of "high speed stuff" you are doing and whether you want better AF like the 7D offers. If you don't really need super-fast AF, the Canon T2i is probably just about as good in terms of noise at high ISO as the 60D or 7D and is supposed to have very good video capability (don't do any myself). I'm sure if you look at the comparable Nikons they will be similar. Another consideration is that if you are going to carry gear with you, there is a big jump in size and weight from the Rebels to the higher models.

have not really looked at the T2i, on paper it looks good, as far as the high speed stuff I would do anything that would come my way from trying to capture the blade on a helicopter to jumping trashcans on our bikes to lauching model rockets, so the T2i is good with low light?

KenC · Dec 31, 2010

Yeah, the T2i has the same sensor and processor as the 60D and 7D, so all of them handle high ISO well, and if there are any differences, they are pretty small. All of them have a top ISO of 6400 (not counting extended or special low-light modes), and most DSLR's have very little noise at least up to two stops below their max ISO setting, so about 1600 for these models. I've even heard of people getting relatively noise-free images at 3200.

If you really want to freeze helicopter blades, you might also be concerned about the max shutter speed. On all of the Rebels like the T2i it is 1/4000. I know some of the higher models have 1/8000, but don't know which ones.

PhillyPhoton · Dec 31, 2010

KenC said:
Yeah, the T2i has the same sensor and processor as the 60D and 7D, so all of them handle high ISO well, and if there are any differences, they are pretty small. All of them have a top ISO of 6400 (not counting extended or special low-light modes), and most DSLR's have very little noise at least up to two stops below their max ISO setting, so about 1600 for these models. I've even heard of people getting relatively noise-free images at 3200.

If you really want to freeze helicopter blades, you might also be concerned about the max shutter speed. On all of the Rebels like the T2i it is 1/4000. I know some of the higher models have 1/8000, but don't know which ones.

thanks for the info, as I remember my minolta only went up to 1/1000 which was plenty, the helicopter was just one of the things that popped into my head, this was 30 years ago....either way its nice to have options...Ill tell ya there are a zillion choices our there and they are all so similar, I think the first limiting step is going to be deciding on Nikon or Canon to see which operating system I like better as far as navagating etc. then go from there