I'm struggling to decide on a camera, sensor size, mirrorless or SLR...Think you can help? ;)

[Gary A.]

just because you go Canon now doesn't mean you are stuck with it for life.

They all still depreciate, and you can resell them and move to another platform.

get a Canon and later learn how to do HDR on the computer .... you're talking gaining experience and knowledge and that will take time with any camera.

It will be harder (lose more investment monies) if you change your platform later than now. Dump everything go Nikon and purchase Good lenses. I think Good Lenses are the single most important hardware element in successful photography.

 

[SCraig]

You can do HDR with ANY camera. Shoot three or more bracketed exposures, drop them onto Photomatix (or the software of your choice), move the sliders until you get what you want.

You can even take ONE exposure, adjust the exposure up and down a stop and save three files. It's actually called "Tone Mapping" but you end up with an HDR image that can be oversaturated to your heart's desire.

 

[astroNikon]

just because you go Canon now doesn't mean you are stuck with it for life.

They all still depreciate, and you can resell them and move to another platform.

get a Canon and later learn how to do HDR on the computer .... you're talking gaining experience and knowledge and that will take time with any camera.

It will be harder (lose more investment monies) if you change your platform later than now. Dump everything go Nikon and purchase Good lenses. I think Good Lenses are the single most important hardware element in successful photography.

even more than gaining experience and knowledge ?
He just needs to make a decision and move forward.

 

[Gary A.]

just because you go Canon now doesn't mean you are stuck with it for life.

They all still depreciate, and you can resell them and move to another platform.

get a Canon and later learn how to do HDR on the computer .... you're talking gaining experience and knowledge and that will take time with any camera.

It will be harder (lose more investment monies) if you change your platform later than now. Dump everything go Nikon and purchase Good lenses. I think Good Lenses are the single most important hardware element in successful photography.

even more than gaining experience and knowledge ?
He just needs to make a decision and move forward.

I stated "hardware element" ... nothing beats experience and knowledge. Whether Timmy decides to go Canon or to go Nikon doesn't affect experience and knowledge. In fact, as Timmy stated he wants to ultimately go Nikon 610 (at least at this time), then he'll be higher on the Nikon learning curve if he went Nikon APS-C now than Canon APS-C.

Experience and knowledge (to a lesser extent) is gained via time behind the viewfinder, not dependant upon camera manufacturer.

 

[Gary A.]

PS- I agree on making a decision and moving forward. If he chooses Canon, it would be a good choice and if he choices Nikon ... another good choice. It would be nice to choose a final system that fulfills his ultimate goal of a FF camera. (But then, who knows if Canon will come out with a camera similar to the 610 with a year or two.)

 

[TimmyD11]

Another thing I have to be honest with myself about is that as it stands now, when I have the time and friends to do these things with, I am a hiker / backpacker / wilderness explorer first and photographer second. That means I generally run across things worthy of photographing while I am doing these things. I am trying to imagine a time that I might be hiking with a whole lot of photography equipment, including huge heavy expensive lenses. Realistically I won't want to be doing that unless my gut feeling tells me I will be almost guaranteed to run into wildlife on these excursions.

Also, unfortunately, I may not always run into things usually worthy of photographing at the right time of day. Hikes are usually planned to do during daylight, to do it and make it out by a decent time, not necessarily timed to come across that beautiful view at optimum time, with sunlight coming from the right direction.

Perhaps some day I will plan trips and excursions around photographing specific places and things. Right now I'd just be lucky to find people that want to do these kinds of trips with me...and can.

I dream of Denali trips...and bush plane trips into northern British Columbia, and maybe Yukon, but seems like the years fly by without meeting people that want to do these things.

Anyway, back to photography.

So a shorter focal length lens essentially goes longer on an APS-C DSLR. That means cheaper and lighter and more compact. Probably awesome too, if slightly less awesome than on a full frame camera with a big honking lens.

Lens for wildlife probably doesn't need to be a super fast 1.4 or 2.8 either. So we're talking a zoom lens at 75 to 250mm at 4.0 or something? 250 on APS-C goes to 400. Can this lens be gotten under $1500? Does Tamron or Sigma really sell lenses for less that are every bit as good as Canon or Nikon lenses?

Canon sells a 16 to 35 4.0 or something like that for about $1000. That would cover landscapes in APS-C or full frame.

Maybe I could shoot wildlife with a bridge camera and be more serious about landscapes with an SLR since that is what I am more passionate about.

Still not exactly sure!

;(

 

[beagle100]

I mean, if I eventually want to be at full frame (as it stands now) why should I go for the 80D, at the 80D price, when there is newer Canon sensor / processor combination technology in the t7i and 77D, image quality is damn near as good, and they cost less? I can put that $300 or $400 into a better lens that will work on everything now and in the future.

the Canon 80D is fine, you'll get better image quality than Nikon (and certainly better and cheaper lenses)
but if you like smaller and lighter for hiking and backpacking go mirrorless
www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless

 

[TimmyD11]

Is there a "crop factor" with mirrorless or is focal length 1:1 ?

 

[Gary A.]

"Awesome" is an element of the photographer... not necessarily the lens or camera. Sony makes a FF inchangeable lens mirrorless camera(s), Fuji, Canon and Nikon are APS-C only, Pnansonic and Olympus are MFT.

 

[Gary A.]

Good mirrorless cameras, which are equal to a dSLR in capability are generally a bit more expensive than an equivalent dSLR.

 

[TimmyD11]

So I may go down in size but if I keep the quality high the cost is going up with mirrorless?

 

[Derrel]

We thought that, less than an hour ago, you'd settled on a Canon 80D d-slr?

 

[Gary A.]

I shoot Fuji, so I'll speak to Fuji. Fuji is a bit of a niche camera. It is designed to look retro and to operate similarily. All the primary controls, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, et al, are directly and manually activated. Manual controls must cost more to implement than menu driven controls. Fuji cameras have much more metal than similar dSLR's, Fuji XF lenses are all metal and Fuji has a much smaller marketplace, making 100,000 Fuji's must be more expensive than making 1,000,000 dSLR's. (Economy of scale.)

In Fuji's case, yes they are more expensive than a comparable dSLR, but I can see where that extra money is going to.

 

[TimmyD11]

"Awesome" is an element of the photographer... not necessarily the lens or camera

Granted. I meant awesome providing I could provide the awesome...as in in no way held back or limited because of being APS-C and not full frame.

 

[TimmyD11]

We thought that, less than an hour ago, you'd settled on a Canon 80D d-slr?

Nope, still kicking around the pros and cons inside my head.

Arguments to be made for t7i or 77D all the way up to to a D610.