Looking to buy a dslr

[Nakamichi Dragon]

I have owned an Olympus 720 for two years and I would now like to buy a dslr camera and a lens for landscape photography. Any suggestions? I don't have any dslr esuipment at the moment so I am not bothered what make I buy, I will be starting from scratch. I have abudget of around £800.00 and that will need to cover camera and lens.

Thank you
Nak

[jseaman]

To be direct, your budget is a bit low for a DSLR and lens. But with landscape photography you don't need some of the bells and whistles of the newer models so a used Canon 300 or 350 would do nicely for the body.

For a lens ... don't skimp. A lens will outlive a digital camera every time. My favorite for landscape use is the Tokina 12-24mm F/4. It is a heavy duty, well built lens with very little distortion even at the 12mm position and great color. I use it on a 1.6x crop body (the Canon 20D) and love the results.

The 1.6x bodies (Canon 300,350,10,20) give this lens a practical focal length of 17-38mm - great for most landscape work.

The following is a link to an unedited full size photo shot with this lens at 12mm - the subject was the side yard of the chapel at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Warning: Even though it is in jpeg format, it is almost 4 meg in size!
http://jbs-blog.com/images/offsite/2005-10-05-2311.JPG

[Andy]

Hi Nak,
I think (hope) Jim is getting your budget confused with $US 800 rather than the very healthy budget of £GB 800.
From my experience, many of the actual dslr's are much of a muchness and I'd advise spending more on the glassware in front of the camera.
For example, a Nikon D50 is now around £399 ...and if you purchased a lens or two at the same time, you would get these at further discounted prices.

Others that would be similar, would be the Canon 350D and Nikon D70s.

Canon or Nikon, it matters not much today... in the past it was a case that Canon had a more up to date range of lenses, with image stabilisation incorperated at not much extra cost. Nikon has always thrived on producing camera bodies that are easier to use, with functions and general layout coming to hand more naturally. Today, Nikon are producing a wider range of modern lenses, image stabilisation being included now at a reasonable price (not that I.S. will be too important with wide angle lenses and hopefully a tripod as support).

I'm no expert at wide angle lenses, but the crop factor with dslr cameras that use 'APS' sized sensors is something to remember, so you do need to look for lenses that have a lower focal length than those recommended for 35mm film cameras... 18mm will be more than adequate for a nice wide field of view.

cheers,
Andy

[rayl]

Hi Nak, my choice was the Nikon D50, I am completely happy with it. As Andy said it is readily available for £400. My choice of lens would be in the 10 to 20mm zoom range (15 to 30mm equivalent) The Tokina lens in the following links is £360, which leaves you £40 for a decent SD card .

http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/len...24_4/index.htm

http://www.popphoto.com/assets/downl...naLensTest.pdf


Ray

[postcardcv]

Given your budget the Nikon D50 seems the sensible way to go as it's now available new for just under £400 - the next step up would be either the Nikon D70 or the Canon 350D, but you'd have to pay an extra ~£150. Personally I doubt that it would be worth paying for either of these as the D50 would do the job fine.

Make sure that when you do go to buy you consider all the extra stuff you might need - memory cards, spare battery, tripod, camera bag... it all adds up.

[Geoff Brown]

If you have an Olympus what is wrong with a camera from the Olympus E4 system. The system was designed from the ground up for digital useage and the cameras and lenses being Olympus should be optically and electronically excellent.

[Leicaman7]

Don't forget the Konica-Minolta 5D which has an in body anti-shake system and a nice, large monitor.

[jseaman]

Originally Posted by Andy

Hi Nak,
I think (hope) Jim is getting your budget confused with $US 800 rather than the very healthy budget of £GB 800.

cheers,
Andy

A little confused ... but not by much!

£1 = $1.77 US
£ 800 = $1419 US

A new Canon 350D (body only) is $790
The Tokina 12-24mm lens is $499
Add in a compact flash card (2Gb) at $150

And the budget is busted!

And as I understand it, things are even more expensive in GB than here in the States.

Go for a used camera body and there will be enough money left over for a lens cleaning cloth or maybe a spare lens cap.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by jseaman

A little confused ... but not by much!

£1 = $1.77 US
£ 800 = $1419 US

A new Canon 350D (body only) is $790
The Tokina 12-24mm lens is $499
Add in a compact flash card (2Gb) at $150

And the budget is busted!

And as I understand it, things are even more expensive in GB than here in the States.

Go for a used camera body and there will be enough money left over for a lens cleaning cloth or maybe a spare lens cap.

Don't know about all that, just know that in the U.K. £800 will buy you a new dslr and a decent wide lens to go in front

[Keith Reeder]

A D50 for £400 and a Sigma 135-400mm for £300 leaves more than enough for a decent bag and an SD card (which the D50 uses).

For example, the Hama bag here http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/prod...oducts_id=6021 for £18 (very canny bag - check out the reviews) and a 512mb sd card for £25 - http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/prod...ucts_id=100517 - and you've still got money in your pocket for the lens cleaning cloth and a spare lens cap..!