Canon Rebel, 30D, or Nikon D80? (Coming from Sony)?

Question

I have a Sony Mavica CD500 and want to upgrade. I primarily take photos of my 3-year-old, but I also do some portraits and landscapes and shots in low or natural light or at night, so I need a good flash, stabilization, fast shutter, no lag time between shots, and good overall low-light speed and quality. I want something fast with good lenses so I can increase zoom and angles, yet fairly easy to use. Here are my questions:
1) I'm looking at the Nikon D80 and the Canon 20D or 30D, or possibly the Canon Rebel: Which would be best?
2) What lenses should I start with? Most of my shots will be close, but with the occasional long-distance shots that need a decent zoom length. I also do macro shots from time to time.
3) All these cameras have viewfinders. My Mavica shoots strictly from the LCD, so I've gotten used to that. Is it possible to shoot from either the viewfinder OR the LCD on these cameras?

4) The Mavica writes to a miniCD, so this will also be my first time using memory cards. Which are best? What do I look for in terms of size/speed/quality?

Any advice, experience, recommendations, or additional information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

1. I'm a Nikon shooter and have played around a littled with the D80 and really like it. Either of the two upper level Canons would be fine as well. One thing to consider for portraits is autofocus points. The D80 has eleven. I'm not sure about the Canons.
2. You have a broad range of shooting situations so you will need lenses to cover wide angle to telephoto. Something like 18mm on the wide angle side and 200mm on the tele end should do. Remember that the Nikon digitals have a 1.5x factor and the Canons have a 1.6x so a 18mm lens becomes a 27mm and a 200mm becomes a 300mm.

You mentioned low light photography. Doing that well, especially with human subjects, means you'll need some fast lenses. Lenses that will open to a constant aperature of at least f/2.8. That also translates into $$$.

For Nikon I have a 50mm f/1.8 that is good for portraits and low light situations. It is considered "poor man's fast glass" as it retails for around $100. I also have a 80-200mm f/2.8 for portraits and sports photography. A new version will sell for better than a $1000 US dollars (A lot of the Nikon pro glass will be in that $1000 range). Sigma and Tokina both make zooms in that catergory that are good and sell for less.

A great macro lens for the Nikon is the Nikkor Micro 105mm. I think you might need to ask yourself about how much macro photography you will be doing as the best macro lenses can be pricey. Some zoom lenses have a macro mode that may suffice for your shooting.

The 18-55 & 55-200mm kit lenses that came with the camera have produced good images. They are not fast enough for indoor sports but can handle many situations well. I've shot football with them and gotten great pictures.

3. All of those cameras will require you to shoot through the viewfinder. Good camera holding technique is to have that viewfinder right up to your eye with your elbows tucked in next to your sides. The heavier lenses will require that type of technique.

You mentioned flash. Expect to pay a nice sum but do get either the Canon or the Nikon TTL flash. They are super easy to use and worth the money.

Tripod - Get yourself a good tripod. A tripod can help your portraits and landscapes more than any other single item you can buy. I thought that spending $200 for tripod legs and $100+ for a tripod head was ridiculous until I bought that 80-200mm f/2.8. That lens is heavy and there is no way I'd mount the camera on a $30 tripod with that lens attached.

Get "The Digital Photography Book" by Scott Kelby. You might even want to get that book before you buy the camera because he will address a lot of your questions and that might help you decide. The book is less than $15 (US).

Check out some of the review sites listed in sources here.

Answer 2

All of the cameras you've mentioned are great. They're probably also all more than you need. The Canon 20D and 30D are semi-pro models that can shoot 5 frames per second. The Nikon D80 is probably the most pleasant camera for day to day use, but at $900 for the body, it's overkill. The Canon Rebel XTi (and the earlier Rebel XT) are getting close. For $200 less than the Canon Rebel XTi, I'd advise the bare bones Nikon D50, however.
The D50 is great in low light, vastly more responsive than any point & shoot, it has a few presets or you can chose to set everything manually, and of course, it can use the full range of Nikon lenses. The only drawback is that the D50 is 'just' 6-megapixels. This is more than enough for 8x10 inch prints, but obviously not as good as the more expensive 10-megapixel cameras.
2)
Lenses. I just saved you a ton of money on the body, and now I'm going to spend it all on the lens. The Nikon 18-200mm zoom is the all-in-one lens that every camera company wished they had ($750). There are cheaper alternatives (without image stabilization) from Tamron etc, too. Or you could start with a standard zoom. The Nikon 18-70mm ($310) is a very good lens for the price. You could try that for a while and add a 70-200mm zoom, a dedicated macro lens, a cheap 50mm f/1.8 for low light, etc, if and when the need arises. Same for the flash. The D50 and all the other models have a built-in flash that suffices most of the time.
3)
The viewfinder. All of these cameras only use the eye piece as a viewfinder. The LCD screen is only for reviewing pictures and for accessing the menu. This is true for all dSLR models by all brands, with the exception of the Olympus E300 (and I don't think you'll find anyone who'd recommend that one.) If you really, really want a swivel screen for previewing your shots, there is a small company that makes them seperately (they slide over the eye piece).
4)
Memory. Regardless the camera you select, and whether it takes Compact Flash memory or SD memory, a 2 GB SanDisk Ultra ll card should be perfect.

Answer 3

Can only speak primarily on Nikon, since that is what I own - a D1x, D70s, and D80. But, in general, in DSLR the stabilization is in the lens - not the camera body.

Flash units - Nikon has excellent flash units and can be linked and controlled by the flash mounted on the D80. I use the SB800. They also make the SB600 which is a little cheaper than the 800.

Lag time - the D80 basically has none, as do all DSLR. The lag time is only objectionable in point and shoot camera. When you get to the SLR bodies, it is not a factor.

Shutter speed - all good SLR cameras have fast shutter speeds. The D80 is 1/4000.

Low light - All digital cameras have a problem in long exposures. They add a lot of noise (grain).

Nikon Lens - You can buy either the G lens that comes with the kit and it is a zoom or you can buy just the body. They have two basic lines - the G (variable aperture & considered to be the consumer line but still excellent) and their better line of set aperture. For example, I recently purchased their 18-200 VR (vibration reduction) lens and the aperture varies from f3.5 to f5.6. I have three other zoom lens, the 17-35, 28-70, and 80-200 which are fixed at f2.8 thoughout the zoom range. These are twice the cost of the G series.

Macro - some of the zooms offer what I call a modified macro. You can't get to 1-to-1 shoots without buying a dedicated macro lens. Nikon makes a great 105mm f2.8 macro lens with VR. When you get that close you must either use a tripod or a VR lens because you can't hold the camera still enough at the extreme close range (about half an inch away from the subject).

The LCD viewer has many drawback as compared to an actual optical viewer. No SLR offers LCD viewers. You must compose using the optical finder, which is more accurate (what you see is what you get) and you will find much easier to use when it is bright light outdoors. LCDs are very hard to see when it is bright.

One point to Canon - they have more VR (or what the call IS) lens.

If you want more info, email me directly.

Norm

Answer 4

With the cameras you are looking at...you get what you pay for. You could probably get away using the Rebel XTi, with a 70-200mm lens; but you will be much happier with the Canon 20D or 30D. Same with Nikon. My opinion is the Rebel (that is what I have) has too much noise when taking in low light/Natural light. I have heard the 20D/30D are much better with the noise. You will probably want to invest in two lenses also. A 18-70mm (or there about) and a telephoto one 70-200mm.With the cameras you are looking at...you get what you pay for. You could probably get away using the Rebel XTi, with a 70-200mm lens; but you will be much happier with the Canon 20D or 30D. Same with Nikon. My opinion is the Rebel (that is what I have) has too much noise when taking in low light/Natural light. I have heard the 20D/30D are much better with the noise. You will probably want to invest in two lenses also. A 18-70mm (or there about) and a telephoto one 70-200mm.
Cards- I think all of the DSLR's use the Compact Flash Cards (a larger square looking one). The higher the right speed, the fast images are recorded. I honestly do not see too much of a difference between right speeds. don't get me wrong-there is some, but not much difference unless you take more than about 6 pictures back to back. As you probably know, memory cards act as the film for DSLR's. The more Mega Bites or Gigabytes the more 'film' you have. I recommend a 2 Gig card, but you could get away with smaller. Crucial.com is a great place to get memory. Kingston brand (and a few others) have life time warranties!
I don't know of a DSLR with live view??? I would like to know as well if there is one, but it would defeat the purpose of SLR. The more times the information has to be transferred and relayed throughout the device, the more manipulated it has to be. With a digital SLR, only the mirror and your eye is used to see the image. + is would be hard to stabilize the camera, unless you had a tripod, if you were holding out in front of you. Most people do not have a problem adjusting to the change. If Live View is something that is a must for you, you might want to look at the higher end Canon point and shoots. They are coming pretty far with the manual options they are adding to those.
Hope this helps,
-K-

Answer 5

Alan is very knowledgeable, listen to his advice! My vote would be for the D80. (But then, I am a Nikon gal, so what to expect?) :-) If you don't already have any lenses, my suggestion is to go to the camera store and handle both the Nikon and the Canon. (I wouldn't bother with the Sony) Play with them a few minutes and see if one just feels better in your hands than the other. Look through the viewfinder. Access the controls, even if you don't know what they are changing. One may just feel more natural to you. That's the one you should get. Both are fine cameras and have a large selection of accessories and lenses. Good luck!

Answer 6

I think you should stick with fixed lens camera. Do you really want to pull around a bag of lens with you everywhere you go? The newer single lens SLR has very powerful optical zoom. Like Fuji 9100 has 12x zoom, that is over 400mm. The newer Sony camera has stablization function and takes great pictures. I just think all those 30D and D200 are so old school. Unless you are a pro, you should consider what's more practical. You can go to steve digicam site to look at the spec and sample pictures if you don't believe me.