Hi there

I am saving for a digital SLR camera at the moment. Does anyone have any recomendations? Naturally, it would have to be good enought to take wildlife photos!

Thanks in advance.

Rowena

I would also like some recommendations. My Canon Powershot works well enough, but I would really like something that can take macro shots, and long distance too!

Kingfisher

I use a Canon (hence my name) D400, which at present is a very good buy, with cash-back from Canon. The range of lenses (both by Canon and others) is huge.

There are several points that I think make the D400 a good camera to buy. The image quality is superb, even at high ISO. It has built in sensor cleaning. It is relatively small and extremely easy to use.

Don't buy the 18-55 lens that comes as part of the kit - it's not very good, go instead for the body and buy the 17-85 IS lens. The image stabilisation makes an enormous difference.

I've gone from a Rollei 6006 medium format SLR to a digital SLR and I wouldn't go back again. The quality of my Canon is so good.

Thanks for your advice both of you.

To be honest with you I don't have any experience with digital SLR cameras. Only a point and shoot camera which is quite rubbish and also a manual SLR camera Pentax with an internal light meter.

These questions probably sound very daft but do the SLR cameras have internal light meters, and are you in control of the shutter speed and apateur setting? I did have a manual SLR pentax without an internal light meter and I was just no good at the guess work!

Thanks!

Rowena

Oooh this opens us a whole big bag of stuff!

People seem to fall into two camps on digital SLR cameras. The people who swear by Canon and the people who swear by Nikkon.

I fall into the Nikon category myself but it is just personal prefference.

Yes digital SLR cameras have built in light metering and often allowing for several methods of light metering, spot, multiple etc etc.

Yes digital SLR cameras allow for manual operation, shutter speed, aperture, ISO etc etc. That is one of the benefits amongst many others of going to digital SLR.

Of course once you have bought your digital SLR body that is only the beginning and where it can start to get expensive..which are the lenses. You will find most digital SLR owners into wildlife photography drewling over long prime lenses. But with the three zeros they command they are out of the reach of most of us and like me people tend to compromise on something like the Sigma 50-500mm zoom lense which will still set you back around £800, but that is small change compared to the £5000 plus you can spend on a 500mm prime lense! With the lenses it really is a case of getting what you pay for..you can't beat good optics and good optics cost, the better light gathering capability of the lense the more money it will cost but it saves endless frustration of having a lense that you can't use unless it is brilliant sunshine

I don't actually own a Macro and use my old Fuji Finepix S7000 bridging camera for Macro. I do carry around an 18-55mm lense for landscape pics, a 70-300mm for general wildlife and the 50-500mm for getting in closer.

I would recommend getting down to a good reputable camera shop and talking to the guys in there about what you want out of the camera and having a go in the shop with a few to get a feel of what feels good to you.

It is easy to let the money mount up though and I would set a limit before you go and don't foget that things like an additonal battery for the camera can set you back £50, a decent camera bag can set you back £50 (if you have a larger lense like I do then £120 for the camera bag as you really do want to protect your gear), then there are the media cards for the camera, daylight or neutral filters maybe for your lenses..it all mounts up.

This post was last modified: 03-10-2007 09:56 PM by chascreek.

Thanks for that - very helpful learnt lots. I have lots of lenses and filters for my pentax Ashasi - would these fit on the digital SLR?

Thanks

With regard your old pentax lenses, you would have to check whether these would fit the modern Pentax dSLR. The main problem is that many manufacturers changed the mount when they went autofocus and older lenses don't fit - I have a cupboard full of Canon manual lenses, all doing nothing since I sold my Canon T90 bodies.

One thing I will warn you about, which is often quoted when talikng about digital SLRs is the "magnification factor" compared with 35mm SLRs. You will be told that, say, a 300mm lens on a 35mm SLR is becomes a 480mm lens when put on a dSLR. This is absolute nonsense. A 300mm lens is a 300mm lens no matter what camera it is put on. The only difference is that on the smaller sensor size used in most digital SLRs, there is more cropping of the image, but if you photograph a bird at 50 metres, the image produced is exactly the same size no matter what camera is used. It is only apparently larger because of the smaller size of the sensor. So don't be taken in by that!

With regard control of the camera, there is usually full automatic (including focus), then there are a choice of modes which allow you full control, including aperture priority, shutter priority and manual exposure and manual focus. In my experience, the cameras are so good these days, that in most cases the camera will get it right. I normally use aperture priority, so I can set the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed, but I can also set under/over exposure control for more difficult subjects. Once the pic has been taken, the exposure can be checked by using the histogram function on the playback and the exposure adjusted for the next shot if necessary. For my red kite pictures (http://www.rakm.co.uk/red_kite.html), I simply set the camera to fully automatic sports mode and fired away, but for my macro work, for which I use a 90mm macro lens, I will use aperture priority auto exposure but with manual focus, or set the particular focus point on the auto focus for a specific point on the object.

So you see, with a good dSLR, as with a film SLR, you can exercise as much control as you require.

This post was last modified: 04-10-2007 07:23 AM by wild canon.

Thanks for that.

That is a lovely picture of your red kite, in fact I look a look at your entire website and I can see why you chose the goldfinch picture for your photo on here - looks stunning with the berries!

As you can see, I am only just a starter with digital SLR cameras. Is there a cheap starter camera yo can recommend?

Thanks

Rowena

We are in Wild Canons camp . I use a Canon Powershot S2IS but as something went wrong with Skip's we upgraded him to the Canon 400D SLR.
I started off with the Canon EOS then went on to the Sureshots & Powershots & progressed to the one I have now. I quite like Canon's but it is all personal preference. I do find that on modern day camera's repair are expensive so the digital SLR is now insured for that.
We had the cashback offer on too but you have to remember to claim it as some people might forget.
We do have a cheap Fuji finepix (paid £40) in the car Skip used to take it to work after being attacked by youths, but now the fire engines have CCTV on & we use that camera for in the car. It came in extremely useful a few months ago when someone ran in my new car. We took pics & later when they denied responsibility we could prove that they were totally at fault.
As for all the specifics of camera's I would advise you to take advice as personally I find it a right mystery. I leave it up to Skip...

It all depends what you call cheap. I consider the 400D to be "cheap" when compared to the likes of the 1D.

There are cheaper models available - such as those offered by Olympus and Pentax, see here for some bargains:

http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cu...w_all=true

The main difference between the above and Canon & Nikon is the range and quality of lenses and accessories available, but as has been said elsewhere, it depends what you want to do with the camera. I bought an Olympus outfit for my son for his last birthday, it came with two lenses and I was very impressed with the quality. It also had image stabilisation built into the body, so it works with whatever lens you put on. If you're not going to want long focus, large aperture lenses in the future then frankly you will not be disappointed with either Olympus or Pentax, although with the Canon, you get much better quality if you want to use a high ISO setting than any other make. In the end, you pays your money and you takes your choice, but look carefully at what you want the camera to do and make sure the appropriate lenses are available.