Thread: The 'right' DSLR for me?

Originally Posted by BobL

On a related matter most serious DSLRs users are not that worried about body failure because the bodies generally go out of date well before they fail and are considered as semi consumable. What these users are more focussed on is investing in glass or lenses, with their lenses being often worth much more that their camera bodies. The higher end DSLR systems are those that more or less guarantee that a given set of lenses will have a body form they can attach to for a period of 10-15 or so years.

Yet I have read of DSLR's dying useless to costly to repair and these have been top range mostly.
The bodies vary from light plastic to still alloy body
Agree with the lens situation when the Canon range changed recently to stabilised system many older lenses no longer work or fit (this I have only had by word of mouth)

No, the Canon lenses (like the Nikon ones) are still as compatible as they used to be; any EOS camera (introduced in the late 80's) will take the EL mount lenses. I think earlier lenses are still physically compatible, but you will have to do everything manually.

The exception is with the EL-S lenses - these are made for the APS-C size sensor cameras only (that's just about every camera in Canon's digital line up) but they wont fit the very top of the line $$pro cameras that use a full frame sensor.

Basically, you can use an EL lens on every Canon body (film or digital) produced in the last 20 odd years, but the very top of the line models can't use the (cheaper) EL-S lenses.

Nikons are compatible in a similar way...but again, you revert to full manual after about the mid 80's.

Originally Posted by LiliB

with some editing

I then went into Digital photography via a Canon S1 IS, which had its limitations, particularly, I thought the maximum lens length, as well as colour interpretation problems. I bought the Fuji Finepix whilst doing a short course locally which required us to shoot macros, and my Canon didn't have a macro mode. Bad move!!

I have found that for me, neither camera achieves the clarity, sharpness, richness of detail and accurate colour that my trusty old Olympus could. The Fuji cannot interpret reds at all, and has trouble with blues too. The Canon also has trouble with colour, blues I think.

I began life shooting with an Olympus OM40.
The optics required for really great sharp photos, are I gather, necessarily expensive.
I spent a fair bit on Olympus and Leica lenses as well as some Tamrons. I guess that until I have a comparable current lens, perhaps my digital zoom will never produce the really sharply focused, finely honed photos I once shot.

Now I will finally cut to the chase. I'd like some opinions on what entry level, good DSLR I should consider as upgrade. I want - good electronics, true colour rendition, range in lenses, with mid-range quality lenses being available.

I guess I'm looking at perhaps $2000 or so investment. for body, lenses - wide angle, 50-80mm (old equivalent), 125-250mm and scope to use an external flash. (I don't do much night photography, more late evening and early morning, so it's not a high priority.)

you can still get colour negative and slide film -- I'm not sure whether the quality of current production meets your needs, but if it does, I'd go back to the Olympus for serious stuff and either scan the prints (which will already be colour balanced if you use a decent printing service) and/or invest in a desktop film scanner.

This should keep you well below your $2,000 budget.

I'd keep a digital point and shoot for pointing & shooting and go back to film


Myself, I've got:
2 point and shoots -- both Casios, one 5 year old technology, the other two years old. These are my 4th and 5th digital point and shoots.
plus a Nikon D40 -- primarily chosen because the flash sync is 1/500 (the D40s is much slower, 1/100 from memory)
I went with Nikon because I've owned a F90 since 1992 and over the years have bought a few very good lenses, my brother in law also has Nikon and an extensve lens collection (including a 35mm PC), and I knew if I changed to Canon I'd be wanting to replace most of my Nikon lenses within a year or two — something i knew I couldn't afford.


I have also spent much more than $2000 on lenses, eg
AF-S DX Nikkor 17–55mm ED F2.8G (IF) current Japanese price in AUD $1760. This is a great lens for portraits and wandering arround cities.
AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor 70–300mm F4.5–5.6G (IF) current Japanese price in AUD $620
Tamrom 10–20mm -- cost me about AUD$900 in Tokyo 2 years ago
plus a basic external Nikon Flash which set me back about AUD$300 two weeks ago.


so I don't think your objective body + 2 or 3 lenses + flash for about $2000 is achievable.

example lens prices, taken from the current Japanese Nikkor catalogue (converted to AUD) are:
AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor ED 12–24mm, F4G (IF) $2,000
AF-S DX Nikkor 10–24mm F3.5-4.5G (IF) $900
AF Nikkor 20mm F2.8D $620
AF Nikkor 28mm F2.8D $310
AF Zoom-Nikkor ED 80–200mm F2.8D $1,320 (I have the 1992 version of this lens and it's brilliant)

based on the one price comparision I've done, the Australian domestic price will be about 25% more than the AUD equivalent of the Japanese price

Originally Posted by LiliB

Hi everyone,

So Canon is coming up pretty well in many departments. I did a little experiment this morning that highlights where my views are coming from at the moment.

I photographed the colour chart in the earlier thread I mentioned with my two cameras, the Fuji first, the Canon second, and finally with David's little Olympus work camera.

The colour shifts are staggering wide. The Olympus is far and away the cleanest redition of the colour chart, with the Fuji and Canon both being significantly out of whack with reds and blues.

I also suspect that the Olympus optics are better, at this level. So on the basis of what I'm seeing here, naturally I wouldn't have rushed out to buy a Canon DSLR. However, there's so much technical information that must be taken into consideration and the layman isn't easily able to absorb it all . BUT one thing I will never do again, is buy a camera without testing it's sharpness and colour rendition up front.

Now what about the micro four thirds cameras? Just another gimmick to create a niche market.

I may have misled you all a little about my photographic needs. I photograph landscapes, buildings and gardens most frequently. But I also love a good zoom lens and am used to at least 250mm range.
I generally also crave a good wide angle - the standard 28mm.

The colour charts are an eye opener aren't they? Not just in terms of colour but crispness of image. These were photographed within seconds of each other, so I'm close to being able to compare apples with apples. Only aspect that I can't keep standard is focal length used.

As to price, we have built up some pretty good woodies toys over a number of years. I would treat my camera purchases the same, and just buy extra lenses as I needed them. The starter lenses and body are what I'd be happy to spend about $2000 on in total.

Keep the comments coming. Appreciate it greatly.

Cheers
LiliB

Looking at you pics of the colour range you have done what they do in Comercial advertising to promote a product taken the shots using ifferent camera's at different andlges which gives you different readings. So comparing these is usless, a slight movement in any direction will alter colour perspective especially if your photograping a computer screen. All settings should be equal but this would have to men lens apature, white balance, colour balance, angle of shot etc etc.

LilliB its going to come down to a simple as user and fit into hand for me, the Canonn 350D was smaller and difficult to operate even just the shoot button alsso felt i was to light and flimsy. The store owner knew some Pro's using them and had said one drop and there gone. the 450D slightly larger awkward button and lousy menu. 500D and 550D or even better the 50D just wish I could afford it.

Hi everyone

Thanks for the diverse input. I'm aware that my example of the three colour charts is not really particularly valid, however, it just helped to demonstrate the range of colour shift I had been experiencing with individual shots of known colour ranges in roses.

The Canon produced blue/maroon tones along the red spectrum, and the Fuji tended to shift a lot of colours too, but was fairly hopeless on reds, unless I set a custom white balance before I shot, and set up an appropriate background for each rose.

I felt I really didn't want to do this each time I took a photo. After all, I'm not a professional photographer with all the gear needed.

I like to use my point and shoot for reference photos for paintings, and none of them really achieves this. I understand the colour on the Olympus is the brash oversaturated colour that many of the Japanese TV screens are set on factory setting, and that is a legitimate criticism as is the methodology behind what I did for the example of colour charts. It wasn't meant to be scientific, by any means.

Now as to comments so far -

I agree there's no point in living with a DSLR set on auto. I would generally use aperture preferred often, and manual only occasionally. I find the autofocus very limited on the compacts and really hate lack of a true viewfinder. I would love the choice of focussing manually again, hence my thoughts on a DSLR.

I can certainly find the money for a 450D or D80 body, and would probably opt, at this stage for the 450D. I need to do a fair bit of reading about each, before I decide.

I have a number of lenses from the old film camera days, and am wondering which, if any, of the non Canon lenses I can use on a new camera body. Is it possible to get mounts these days? What are the limitations of electronics in utilising old lenses?

Do you think it's worth dealing considering?

I have

Tamron 80-210mm 1:3.8
Tamron 35-135mm 1:3.5-5.6
Zeiss 28mm
Zuiko 50mm
Makinon 500mm Mirror Reflex F8

(They are stashed away, so I've only got some fairly basic information from my serial numbers database)

The I have the Canon lenses from the EOS
Canon 28-80 1:305-5.6
Canon Ultrasonic 75-300mm 1.4-4.6

so, I gather in the short term, the two Canon lenses can be utilised?
What about the others?

I paid over $500 for the two Tamrons together, and over $500 for the long Canon lens.

Weight and feel, as well as how intuitive the controls are on the camera is a big factor. I found the Fuji felt better in my hand than the Canon, and this is obviously a very personal aspect that others cannot advise me on, so I'll have to go and haunt a big camera store and try a number of them out.

I would love some advice on which Canon lenses to buy to cover the same range as my Tamrons used to - 35-210. (If I can't use them on a new body).

I'd like a long lens for nature photography as well. I know I can use my Canon Ultrasonic on manual, so this might have to do for a while. Advice on what to buy in the longer term would be appreciated.

I'd also like a Macro, so advice there would be useful. I had a look through the lenses for Canon on the Digital Warehouse Website and its totally bewildering.

(I can't even remember what a 'fast lens' is and how you judge it. It's years since I was seriously into photography, so these are things I haven't thought about for a long time. With retirement beckoning, I'm just getting back into photograph again!!

As to the $2000 budget, that's only a ball park figure, and based on the idea that I might be able to utilise some of my existing lenses. After the inital purchase, I would set aside money from time to time, to get more toys. Finding $500-$700 for woodies toys every now and then hasn't been that hard, only this time, I would be buying photographic equipment.

Finally, what is a Ringlite/Twin Ringlite?

Thanks for all the well considered comments,

Cheers
LiliB

If you go for the Canon 450D, it would be a better idea to buy the 2 lens kit rather than the body only. If you compare the 2 lens kit prices vs the body only, you are not paying a lot more for the 2 lenses. The 2 lenses with the kit are 18-55 (roughly 28-80 in 35mm terms) and 55-250 (80-375 in 35mm terms). These would cover your current Canon lenses and allow you to use the full range of options provided by the 450D, ie auto focus, image stabilisation, as well as macro.

If you bought a body only and used the current lenses you would only have manual focus, and no real wide angle, your 28 would turn in to something closer to 45mm on the digital format.

The 500mm Makinon mirror lens would be a T2 mount, these mounts are still readily available on Ebay for about 1/4 the price they want in the camera stores, I have recently bought a T2 mount that's how I know.

Using older 35mm lenses is fine for specialised lenses, ie a 55mm or 90mm macro lens, it makes less sense to use the 35mm zoom lenses because of the focal length multiplication factor.

I find that the quality of the modern lenses for digital cameras is very good indeed, and at the price they are difficult to pass up.

Edit:

Had a quick look on Ebay for comparative pricing, 450D body only is about $250-300 cheaper than a 450D with the 2 IS kit lenses. You wouldn't buy those lenses afterwards for anywhere near that low price.

Originally Posted by LiliB

(I can't even remember what a 'fast lens' is and how you judge it. It's years since I was seriously into photography, so these are things I haven't thought about for a long time.
.......

Finally, what is a Ringlite/Twin Ringlite?

A fast lens is a lens with a large aperture (f1.8, f2, f2.8) that makes it easier to throw the background out of focus - see bokeh. Most of the cheaper Canon zooms will only open up to f3.5~f5.6, but Tamron make some that will do f2.8.

A ringlight is a flash that has the flash tube bent around in a circle to get rid of shadowing when you take flash pictures at short distances. See http://photo.net/equipment/canon/macro-flash/

Originally Posted by LiliB

The I have the Canon lenses from the EOS
Canon 28-80 1:305-5.6
Canon Ultrasonic 75-300mm 1.4-4.6

I think you mean 28 - 80 mm: f/3.5 - 5.6
and 75 - 300 mm : f/4.0 - 5.6?

There is a f/1.4 - 4.6 lens around but I think it is a Tokina 35 - 135 mm

Note your lenses become 45 - 128 mm and 120 - 480 (ie x 1.6) on the prosumer DSLRs)
They are definitely worth keeping.

Thanks Bob and Master Splinter.

Typos on the Tamrons - should be as you say.
The Canon is 1:4-5.6.

I never considered the difference in focal length in my questions on retaining my lenses. I wondered what the conversion factor is - x 1.6, nice to know. Where does that leave my mirror lens? Is it going to be 800mm equivalent? Sure would love to get a mount to put it on a DSLR. It did a nice shot of macro on the odd occasion I used it (It was a present form LOML years ago).

So are the standard twin lenses that come with the Canon 450D package quality enough for good results?

Cheers
LiliB

Originally Posted by LiliB

Thanks Bob and Master Splinter.

Typos on the Tamrons - should be as you say.
The Canon is 1:4-5.6.

I never considered the difference in focal length in my questions on retaining my lenses. What's the conversion factor to use from 35mm to digital for lenses?

Se my previous post.

So are the twin lenses that come with the Canon 450D package quality enough for good results?

The 450D package lenses are considered average to perhaps slightly below average for (D)SLR lenses both in terms of sharpness and colour. But it all comes back to what you are going to do with the photos.
Are you just happy to look at them on your computer or posting on a website, or do you print them out as wall size posters with a calibrated colour printer?

Hi Bob
I do want to print large. That's my next technical issue. I have a Canon i9950 which can take A3, and I was considering selling matted landscape photos, to get a little pocket money in future. I know it's a fabulous printer, having been highly recommended in all the reading I did before I bought it some time ago, and it produces lovely A4 prints.

I have A3 paper that is coming up to a birthday or two, because I haven't really produced much that I think is worthy of the expense involved in printing this large. I have only had a camera larger than 3mp for a little over 18 months, so A3 printing wasn't an option with my earlier Canon.

The whole business of calibration is a foreign country to me. I have a wide screen Acer monitor, which is not at all calibrated to my printer. My printer prints much darker than my monitor shows, especially noticeable in delicate shades of gold and yellow in sunsets or evening sunlight.

I know there's something to do with calibration in Adobe Gamma but it might as well be chinese to me. I don't know anything about calibrating a printer.

Would love a 'baby steps' explanation of the process(es) involved. One of the things that's lovely about this forum, is the ability of so many people with expertise to communicate at a level appropriate to the person asking the question. It's the opposite to what most of us encounter with sales people and even 'would be experts' that I worked with in the past.

Cheers
LiliB

A quick guide to colour...

Colour reproduction - not to say anything of faithful colour reproduction - is all about colour spaces and gamut.

Colour space

A colour space is the range of colours that a device (monitor, sensor, printer, whatever...) can cope with.

For example, the colour space of your inkjet printer is defined by the actual inks it uses. It can't print anything more 'red' than it's red ink; it can't print anything more 'blue' than its blue ink. The inks themselves are the hard limits to what it can reproduce.

It's important not to confuse this with the process of adding black (or another colour) to make a colour darker or seem more intense; we are looking at the actual physical properties of the reproduction medium, not at the way humans can interpret the results.

The attached illustration shows a number of colour spaces - at the back, there is the typical range of colours that can be seen by human eyes; on top of this, the ProPhoto colour space, then the Adobe RGB colour space, then SRGB (the common colour space used by digital cameras), and then a colour space defined by the paper stock it is printed on...which you will see is pretty much the smallest colour space out of all of them as 'ink on paper' is where the gaps between 'real world' and 'theory' become very apparent.

Gamut

Gamut is simply a way of indicating that a particular colour is possible to reproduce accurately with a particular device, whether the device is a monitor or printer or camera sensor.

If a colour can't be accurately reproduced, then it is 'out of gamut' for that device.

For example, you can print colour pictures on a black and white laserprinter, but the colours are all mapped to shades of grey - colour is simply 'out of gamut' for the device, so it converts the out of gamut colours to something it can reproduce, which is grey.

Looking again at the attached illustration, you'll see that there are large areas of human vision that are outside of what can actually be reproduced in each colour space; but some of the colour spaces also extend beyond what the human eye can see.

Just as the eye can see colours that are 'out of gamut' of monitors or printers, some devices can capture or reproduce information that is 'out of gamut' for the human eye. All of these colour spaces are based on the chemical/physical limitations of the materials used.

Colour management

Colour management is what we do to make up for the fact that all these devices work in different colour spaces. Basically, we are trying to align the colours so that the information that is in the original scene can be best represented by the physical reproduction medium chosen.

To get your inkjet printer to reproduce colour to the best of its ability (note that I did not say 'accurately'), you need to get colour profiles.

Sometimes, printers will come with a set of generic colour profiles for particular paper types - these tell the printer how much diffence there is between 'yellow ink' and 'yellow ink when it hits slightly blueish paper' - and they can help, but as soon as you stop using the recommended paper, or non-genuine ink, they become irrelevant and you need to come up with custom profiles to use.

When it comes to making custom profiles, there are no shortcuts - you need a spectrophotometer to be able to asess the printed colours accurately. If you have a scanner that comes with an IT-8 colour target, it is possible to do this way, but it is a fairly large investment of time.

Read here http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...anagement1.htm for more....

Originally Posted by LiliB

snip

I have a number of lenses from the old film camera days, and am wondering which, if any, of the non Canon lenses I can use on a new camera body. Is it possible to get mounts these days? What are the limitations of electronics in utilising old lenses?

Do you think it's worth dealing considering?

I have

Tamron 80-210mm 1:3.8
Tamron 35-135mm 1:3.5-5.6
Zeiss 28mm
Zuiko 50mm
Makinon 500mm Mirror Reflex F8

Then I have the Canon lenses from the EOS
Canon 28-80 1:305-5.6
Canon Ultrasonic 75-300mm 1.4-4.6

so, I gather in the short term, the two Canon lenses can be utilised?
What about the others?

I paid over $500 for the two Tamrons together, and over $500 for the long Canon lens.

I would love some advice on which Canon lenses to buy to cover the same range as my Tamrons used to - 35-210. (If I can't use them on a new body).

I'd like a long lens for nature photography as well. I know I can use my Canon Ultrasonic on manual, so this might have to do for a while. Advice on what to buy in the longer term would be appreciated.

I'd also like a Macro, so advice there would be useful. I had a look through the lenses for Canon on the Digital Warehouse Website and its totally bewildering.

(I can't even remember what a 'fast lens' is and how you judge it. It's years since I was seriously into photography, so these are things I haven't thought about for a long time. With retirement beckoning, I'm just getting back into photograph again!!

Finally, what is a Ringlite/Twin Ringlite?

LiliB, may I be blunt ?
If you really are serious about getting back into photography, I suggest you plan on junking all your existing lenses. Don't spend money on trying to convert the old mounts.

I've been down the path your starting on, only finally converting to full digital about 2 years ago. For a while I would look at what I expected to be taking photos of and pack the film SLR or the DSLR based on which lens combination I expected to use. Then I bought some decent DSLR lenses to cover the film lens range and have stayed digital since.
The only film lenes I still use are my
85mm F1.8 (which converts to about 130mm when monted on a digital body) -- which if you were going Nikon I'd highly recommend as your primary lens for photographing roses
and 80–200 F2.8 -- which I still use because it's just so fast

Whilst I'm a Nikon person, what follows is equally applicable to Canon gear.

Find a mid level DLSR body your happy with in terms of features, feel in the hand, and cost.
read what Ken Rockwell has to say about the Nikon camera range Recommended Cameras digest it then apply the concepts it to the Canon bodies you're considering (Ken also expresses an opinion on which Canon lens he really likes)

then get really serious about researching the lenses you will want.
In general the supplied kit lenses are to keep the mug punter happy and there's some noticable "issues" at one or both ends of the zoom range — with more expensive lenses you get sharper focusing, lower minimum F stop (2.8 instead of 5.6), more glass elements (and often extra low dispersion and/or aspherical lens elements), and rounded diaphrams (so out of focus elements in the frame appear as round rather than octagonal "smudges"), vibration reduction (important with long telephotos)

good luck with you decision

Originally Posted by Master Splinter

...and there is one important thing to remember when you buy as DSLR.

If you are going to leave it set on Auto, you might as well buy a compact.

Agree, i have just finished a short course on the net and we were told we could only shoot in manual.

A friend of mine whose daughter has just done a course in the city was told at the start '' if you want to shoot in auto or work in photoshop don't bother enroling''.