What's a good DSLR?

Question

What is a good DSLR for a beginner?

Answer 1

I'm a strong advocate, and pleased with my Alpha A100.

There are lots of lenses, namely Carl Zeiss, exclusively for sony. And you can expect that sony will make LOTS more Carl zeiss lenses, plus the camera is backwards-compatible with old Dynax lenses.

There's a Built in Image Stabilization, not to mention built in dust removal.

Hope this helps you.

Answer 2

My considerations would come down to Nikon or Canon. The main reason for this is their popularity means that there are many after market products available for these cameras. Nikon have been making cameras and lenses for a very long time and to my mind just get the edge.

Some people indicate that the Canon has a better sensor whilst Nikon has better optics. I don't own a Canon so I can't make up my own mind about that.

I own a Nikon D50 and D80 DLSR. These are both excellent cameras and I would not hesitate to recommend them to you.

If you are just starting out, it may pay to also consider a Nikon D40. Overall you would be better off to spend less money on the camera body and more on lenses. If necessary, the body can always be upgraded later. Nikon's retain a reasonable resale value so this could be used to help finance a later upgrade of you decide you are more serious.

Answer 3

There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. Most DSLR cameras have Live View which operates with the mirror locked out of the way, but compared to a dedicated (Evil) mirror-less camera the implementation tends to be poor. Advantages of a mirror-less camera, In low light the view on the mirror-less is amplified to still give a bright image. You can get movable screen mirror-less cameras (the Panasonic G1 and G2) this is very useful for low angle and high angle shots. The lens mount to sensor distance is small (20mm on the micro 4/3rds system) which means you can use high quality lenses designed for TV cameras cheaply, how does a 180mm f1.4 appeal to you? They can be adapted to use most any lens including Leica compact lenses. With manual focus lenses they have a zoomed in (7X or 10X magnification) view to get the focus spot on, coupled with the bright view you get this is a real winner. They are easy to connect to telescopes and microscopes. They are smaller, lighter and easier to carry around. They implement video better if that interests you. DSLR cameras tend not to allow auto focus in video mode and other limitations. Where the DSLR scores, and scores heavily, is in image quality, notably the lower noise, much better low light performance and wider dynamic range (fewer burnt out skies) you get. This will change as new sensors are developed, but currently the APS sized sensor beats the half frame sensor by quite a margin. The Sony Nex camera tried to overcome this problem, but it was not really successful mainly due to the poor sensor used, and the lenses it uses are the same size and weight of a DSLR. Chris

Answer 4

Any DSLR is ok, just set it to AUTO and it works just like any point & shoot camera. However, a certain knowledge of photography helps. I've been an amateur photographer for over fifty years and started with the simplest film cameras, now I use a Nikon D50 DSLR a Fuji Finepix s7000 and Nikon 3100.
Happy holidays. Kunio, from Brazil.

Answer 5

Get a Nikon D50. There is no delay between pictures at all and no delay between the time you press the button and the camera takes the picture. It has a few "consumer friendly" automatic modes, including a "child" mode, that make it very easy to use, but still offers total photographic control when you are ready to take charge. The "kit" lens is a decent lens optically, but you might want to upgrade to the Nikkor AF-S 18-70 f/3.5-4.5G ED DX lens for a bit more range and a lot more durability. When you are ready to add lenses, the sky is the limit with Nikon. Then, when you upgrade your camera, you will have a nice, useful collection of lenses.

Get a 1 GB memory card, such as the Sandisk "Ultra" for decent write speed.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d50.htm

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Nikon/nikon_d50.asp

Circuit City has it for $630, with the lens.
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Nikon-D50-Digital-Camera/sem/rpsm/oid/127029/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

Walmart had it for $660, but they are out of stock on-line. Maybe a local store has it.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4058046

The memory card will cost $50-60 or so, depending on sales or rebates.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com has a kit with lens AND 2 GB Sandisk memory card for $650. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=1082&A=details&Q=&sku=420992&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

The D40 is the hot new cute DSLR from Nikon, but frankly, it costs the SAME as the D50 and is not as versatile, should you decide to learn more about what you are doing. I'd just buy the D50 and be done with it, as the D40 is going to be hard to find anyway.

Answer 6

Canon, hands down the best DSLR manufacturer period. The 1st link is a more affordable DSLR offered by Canon, the 2nd link is the one I'm saving up to buy personally. Its all because of Canon's lenses and the glass they use that makes them better than others, the third link explains Canon's lens stuff. I work at a Best Buy and heavily research these things ;-) hope this helps.

Answer 7

I have a Canon 300D which is a great entry level dSLR. The newer XT and XTi are extremely nice and I want to upgrade to either the XTi or the 30D.

dpreview.com is by far the most comprehensive camera review site out there.

Answer 8

Fuji has a few styles of camera in the $2-300.00 price range. They are decent for a beginner. One of the main problems with digital cameras is shutter lag. (the time between pressing on the button and when the image is actually taken.) Fuji is one of the cheapest cameras out there with a close sync between the two.

Hope that helps.

Answer 9

Olympus Evolt 330 is really good, or the Nikon D500. Both reasonable priced, get good reviews. Olympus has special lenses and the ultra-freq dust removal feature though - nice.

Answer 10

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