Dslr Excperts- Quick ten days to make my decision!

[peyjax]

So it has been a couple of days and I have been playing with the camera. I was still curious about a couple of things and since I am a novice I need your more advanced help.

I am thinking because I got a good deal on the Canon I should keep it, even though I am still thinking about the VR lens in the Nikon. For the price difference (which is a factor) I could go ahead and get an extra small lens. I was thinking of a 50 mm.(this is of course the cheap version of that lens) That would price wise put me about where the Nikon 60 is. I then would have more abilities with certain shots.

I am soaking up this info on these boards and reading a lot of old posts. Markbarbieri had a posts about startup costs and I found it interesting that several mentioned the 50mm as a great must have. Any suggestions?

 

[pjacobi]

I found it interesting that several mentioned the 50mm as a great must have.

The 50mm lens is a must have lens *if* you have the right use for it, such as portaits, low light and shallow DOF. However, the 50mm lens is probably useless for shooting lions on the African savannah.

Shot at least 1000 pictures with your existing lens, then you will have a better idea of what additional lenses that you need.


-Paul

 

[dr_zero]

So it has been a couple of days and I have been playing with the camera. I was still curious about a couple of things and since I am a novice I need your more advanced help.

I am thinking because I got a good deal on the Canon I should keep it, even though I am still thinking about the VR lens in the Nikon. For the price difference (which is a factor) I could go ahead and get an extra small lens. I was thinking of a 50 mm.(this is of course the cheap version of that lens) That would price wise put me about where the Nikon 60 is. I then would have more abilities with certain shots.

I am soaking up this info on these boards and reading a lot of old posts. Markbarbieri had a posts about startup costs and I found it interesting that several mentioned the 50mm as a great must have. Any suggestions?

We were just talking about the 50mm over memorial day after stumbling across this article.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=25556397#post25556397

 

[MonoManBlue]

For $70 extra dollars, the D60 is a brand new camera from Nikon. Just released, where Canon has replaced the Xti with the Xsi. My opinion, and not because I own the D80 would be to switch to the D60. Its new and it also has a memory card that you can buy that has bluetooth IN the card, therefore you'd never have to hook your camera up to a bluetooth device. Kinda neat....but not what i'd buy the camera on. IMHO the body of the Nikon feels much more durable than any canon. Its why I chose the D80.

Lastly, the 18-135 (kit lense with D80) is considered one of the best kit lenses. The 18-55 is not that great of a lense, and truthfully you'll want a bigger lense anyway for most zoom shots.

 

[Groucho]

The D60 is brand new but the internals are fairly old - until the price comes down, there's not a lot to recommend it over the D40/D40x (if they're still around) or the D80 for slightly more.

 

[Code]

Given that your kit lens lacks IS/VR, I would highly recommend you get the cheap 50mm f/1.8 before you leave. It will be your only option for a lot of indoor and all nighttime shooting without a flash.

One problem, though, is that Auto mode on the XTi will only use ISO 100-400. If you get the 50mm, it would benefit you greatly to switch to "P" mode and use ISO 800 or 1600 when 400 isn't enough.

 

[thomas998]

Actually you can get the Sony A200 from the sonystyle site for 499 right now.. you don't have to wait... if you get a sony card you can buy it from their rewards site for 421 thru the end of June.

While you may not like the feel of it... it is a perfectly fine camera. When I found that Nikon was putting Sony sensor in some of its cameras, that seemed like an endorsement to me.

It would have the added advantage of giving you camera based stabilization and complete compatibility with all Sony and Minolta auto focuse lenses... while not quite as great a selection as a canon or nikon would offer I would be willing to bet you would be able to find any type of lenses you wanted and probably much cheaper than nikon or canon... there are a lot of used minolta af lenses floating around and since sony isn't the a huge market leader those lenses can be found at very reasonable prices.

If it came down to a Nikon D60 or a Sony A200 and I had currently had no lenses for either I would go with the Sony...