What sould i buy??? Please help

Simon · Jun 19, 2006

I have always enjoyed photography, I just didn't like my camera, a compact point and shoot, I got fed up with pressing the button and waiting 3 seconds for it to realize I had sent it an instruction. I saw a review on the D70s and the speed was amazing, but at the time it was over £800 so I went for the cheaper option of the D50 as I didn't want to spend a lot to find out if I really liked photography.

5 Months down the road I realised that I love photography and had spent over £500 on a camera and now wanted to upgrade to something faster and better equipped.

So IMO if you are very keen on photography already, it would be beneficial to buy the best equipment you can afford to save money in the long run.
I have tried the D70s and I much prefer it to the D50, and it has come down in price now, you can pick one up with a kit lense for just over £600. I ended up buying the D200 but that is around £1200 just for the body.

Have a good look around, read some magazines with reviews and go to your local camera shop and get a feel for what you like.
You can review the D50, D70s and D200 here

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Nikon/

bigfatbadger · Jun 19, 2006

Get a large format beast!!!!! You'll never look back. Possibly because your neck will be broken from carrying it.

Soocom1 · Jun 19, 2006

Ok, I am gonna go deep here...

When I shoot Landscape, I try to go as slow as possible. Trying to find ISO 25 color is near impossible now, and the D-50 and D-70 only go down to an ISO of 200 for some unknown reason.
Shooting Landscape in 35, or APS has its drawbacks. One of which is loss of image quality simply because of the size.
As one of the LF nut jobs, I like large images for landscape, but it is cumbersome and expensive. Wide angle is fine for some shots, but you get enormous distortion, particularly upper and lower pincushion.

For the money your talking about, get a used Mamiya RZ67, 60,90 and 127mm lens, use some of the money to get a rock solid tripod, (Not a Ritz special), a cable release, save more money for a Digi. back later on, and learn to use a mirror lockup.

Don Simon · Jun 19, 2006

You could go digital... but as has already been mentioned, with the crop factor it's hard to get true wide-angle lenses. I'm thinking you'd need something at least as wide as 19mm just to get the equivalent to a 28mm lens on 35mm film, and to get a really good quality one is going to cost a lot.

I wouldn't automatically rule out 35mm unless you're planning on making big enlargements. I would however agree that medium format is a better solution. Medium format cameras are rarely lightweight or small, and you'll be reloading after a dozen shots, but none of that really matters, because landscape shots in my experience take a lot of time and planning.

Personally I'd choose a medium format SLR, preferably 6x7 or 6x6 rathen than 645, a couple of lenses and as Soocom said, a very very good (expensive) tripod. An alternative to the SLR is a TLR with interchangeable lenses, though there's not too many of those. Finally I'd probably have some 35mm gear as well, if only as a backup.

Oh and lots of decent slide film.