New to Photography - My Questions/Introduction!

[KiwiShot]

Hey everyone, I'm James from Auckland, New Zealand. I'm 16 and last year I did a small course in photography in a part of a design course for school. I've been pretty interested in photography since then, although, I would prefer not to spend most of my time in the dark-room at school or worry about buying rolls for the camera, so I've planned to buy a DSLR. Now I know most of the basics, we did pretty much a crash-course, although, I arrived an hour later to the course and missed the major talk they had, so I winged the rest and I asked a lot more questions that I was supposed to, so I eventually caught up with the rest of the class.

We used SLR's, and I go to a public school so they were pretty beaten up, we used black and white film (a lot cheaper) and my first roll of film (and to-date currently only roll of film) turned out pretty ameteur, but, what can I expect? I took a few of the park near my house which I'm luckily to have and look forward to some sunrise/set shots.

Anyways, so for this year of school I took photography as a subject, along with design. Design is basically, well it's a few things. Most of it's done on the computer in photoshop, which I'm pretty gifted in, I came third in class last year. I've learned to retouch using photoshop also, and I made a few of my own photo's a lot better than I actually look, though I didn't show anyone. Heh.

Moving on! So, I'm starting photography and I'm going to buy a DSLR. I've got quite a bit of money saved up, almost $900USD or $600 British pounds. First off I'm going to buy a DSLR, but I'm not too sure how much it'll cost me. Since I'm a beginner, I don't want anything too professional, but one I can hang onto and use for a year or two before having to replace it - if I've got enough money.

I'm pretty gifted with computer's, so anything of that aspect won't be a problem. I'm just wondering what kind of specs am I looking for, or could anyone suggest models for me? The money I stated before isn't a target, by the way.

Another question, how does ISO come into DSLR's? Do you change the sensor sensitivity or what? Or is it just completely wiped out and should be forgotten about?

Also, do most DSLR's come with stabilizing or something to prevent your motion affect the image? I don't really want to carry a small tripod around with me or have to rest my camera on something every time I take a shot.

Will I have to worry about buying different lenses since I'm a beginner? I know that the lenses differ from normal SLR lenses, I read somewhere. I know they cost a lot, too.

Any tips or suggestions for a beginner would be appreciated, these forums look pretty well-made and active so I hope to get some replies soon!

Cheers,

James.

EDIT: The money I've stated is most of what I have. I have maybe $200USD or so more to spend, but I'm hoping that $900 would cover the full kit.

 

[Katier]

You should be able to get a basic (but perfectly useable - I use a basic Pentax very successfully ) DSLR with 2 lenses in the £400 price range.

Now if I was you I would EXPECT to be taking film too, your doing a course and one part of a photography course is expermenting and working with different medium. That means film and digital. Now one of the usual camera's that students use is the K1000 Pentax. This take 'K' fit lenses (and will accept ANY pentax lens including auto-focus as long as they have an aperture ring ). This is where you can be a little 'cute'. Pentax DSLR's are heppy with PKA fit lenses ( manual focus ) and K1000 is happy with PKA fit lenses.. see where this is going?

If you got a low end Pentax DSLR, proper flash, K1000 body and PKA lenses you can do a LOT with your budget. Hell you'll be able to fit a couple of decent flashes into that budget too.

 

[davebmck]

You will have an ISO setting on your camera. This is one of the nice things about DSLR's. You can change your ISO setting between shots if you want to. Of course, the higher the ISO, the higher the noise.

Check out the Nikon D60 and the Canon XSi. These are the entry level cameras for these manufacturers.

 

[KiwiShot]

Thanks for the quick replies guys, appreciate it. I'll confirm with my teacher before I purchase the camera, they might be able to get me a deal or something.

I'll take a look at the camera's suggested in the morning, it's 4:30AM here, heh.