Which is better??

[handicap18]

I second the Bryan Peterson book. Excellent.

I don't know if you'll find the Pentax at CC or BB. You'll probably have to venture to a Ritz/Wolf Camera or find a local camera shop. In any big city there are usually a few local chains or at least a few big locally owned camera shops. Those (especially the bigger ones) will usually carry all the dSLR's and also many 3rd party lenses. Ritz/Wolf Camera for example only carries a few Sigma and some Tamron along with their own brand, Quantaray.

I know the 2 big locally owned camera stores in the Greater Boston area carry just about everything and they have a few stores in some of the bigger area's outside of the main city. Plus they're more knowledgable at these types of places.

 

[ukcatfan]

I don't know if you'll find the Pentax at CC or BB.

Our CC carries Pentax.

Kevin

 

[photo_chick]

There is no need to avoid places like BB, CC, and the like as long as there is a good deal. That usually is not the case. I have made multiple purchases from Buydig/Beach Camera (sister companies) and have been very happy. Generally if you see a price lower than them, you should be very sceptical as there are many more scam artists than honest retailers in the online photography world. Adorama and B&H are probably the best around, but they are usually a few dollars more once shipping is included. Buydig/Beach Camera often run free shipping.

Kevin

My distaste of Best Buy comes mainly from their lack of service when it comes to their warranty covered repairs. I have had trouble with them on more than one occasion, at different stores. Also my sister purchased a Rebel XT from Best Buy. It was repacked very well and looked unopened to her. It had issues from the start and it was later determined that it was one of the returns that should not have been put back out. Though normally repacks are easy to spot, hers was not.

Personally I have had great service from B&H.

 

[deletedpenguin]

My distaste of Best Buy comes mainly from their lack of service when it comes to their warranty covered repairs. I have had trouble with them on more than one occasion, at different stores. Also my sister purchased a Rebel XT from Best Buy. It was repacked very well and looked unopened to her. It had issues from the start and it was later determined that it was one of the returns that should not have been put back out. Though normally repacks are easy to spot, hers was not.

Personally I have had great service from B&H.

+1 for B&H

 

[Groucho]

Ahh, glad to see the Pentax army hard at work in this thread.

RBennett, I was almost in the same boat last year... I wasn't happy with my PnS and was thinking more seriously about DSLRs despite the cost. I hadn't been paying attention at all and was surprised when I saw a Pentax *ist DL advertised in the Sunday Circuit City ad for what seemed like a ridiculously low price. I wasn't too worried about the Pentax name as I've been shooting 35mm with a K1000 for years and love it, but was worried a little about the price. I went into full research mode and decided that it was a solid camera and I managed to get it for a incredible price. ($367 with lens from Beach! The price went up almost $100 a few days later.) As I learned more, I not only didn't have buyer's remorse but actually would probably have gone with the Pentax even if the main competition at the time (Nikon D50 and Canon XT) were exactly the same price. Now that the Pentax has in-body IS and still costs less, I can't recommend them highly enough.

For lens quality, Pentax is one of the best, especially for primes... they have some of the best primes that money can buy. Actually, here is an interesting piece from Luminous Landscape from 2002.

"What many photographers aren't aware of is that Pentax still also makes some of the best SLR lenses on the planet. ... ...the very best AF SLR lenses made today are the Pentax Limiteds. ... ...when it comes to the best autofocus lenses in the world, whether for a viewfinder camera or SLRs, it's still Zeiss and Pentax, baby, same as the old days."

For "upgrade path", the K10D is a wonderful piece of equipment with several innovations, and they're hard at work on a "pro" body, as well as updates to the K100D and K10D.

Getting back to your ISO question... like the others said, ISO ups the sensitivity of the sensor. Basically, you need a certain amount of light for a proper exposure of any given scene. Go from 200 to 400, 400 to 800, or 800 to 1600, and you'll need half as much light. That means you can cut your shutter speed in half, which will cut down on blurriness from shaky hands. You can also use it to help with depth of field, but that's another topic.

 

[polkadotladybug]

Oh Lordy - as it if wasn't enough to go out and get an S3 from being around y'all - I just ordered a copy of the Brian Peterson book on amazon. I am so easily influenced! I want to understand all the settings on my camera but I don't know how to do much else other than delete...

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Sorry, I have to disagree pretty strongly with this. On a pure image-quality basis, there is little to no difference between entry-level DSLRs and anything but the top-end full-frame DSLRs - they all (outside of the smaller 4x3 sensor in the Olympus/Fuji/Panasonic) have sensors that are about the same size. By and large, most Nikon, Pentax, and Sony DSLRs use basically the same 6mp or 10mp Sony sensors, and the Canons generally share their own sensors between different lines. If you shoot raw, you shouldn't see a difference - and while the 10mp sensors have more resolution, the 6mp ones should have slightly lower noise levels (probably barely noticable at the Sony 10mp sensor seems to do quite well.)

I agree with Groucho. On the Canon line, the Rebel XTi and the 30D share almost identical imaging systems. IQ is not what separates the entry level and the mid-level cameras.

The extra cost of the body generally goes into construction (sturdier), features (more options for the photographer), and performance (shots-per-second, etc.) The image quality is really more up to the lens than anything else... what you're probably seeing is people who have spent more for a higher-end body and high-end lenses compared to cheaper bodies and cheaper lenses.

Again, I agree with Groucho. There are good reasons for moving up to a higher end camera, but IQ is usually not one of the biggest reasons. Of course, some things like focus speed, viewfinder brightness, and camera handling may enable you to get better shots, but those are secondary effects. If you put a Rebel XTi and a 30D side-by-side and shoot the same shot with the same settings, you'll get basically the same picture.

You may also find the more experienced/advanced shooters using the higher-end cameras thereby producing better quality photos, which would be true no matter what they shot with.

Top quality cameras and top quality photographers corelate reasonably well, but there notable exceptions. I've seen some great photographers shooting with Rebels and I know of at least one decidely mediocre photographer that uses a 1DM2 and several L lenses.

 

[Groucho]

I agree with Groucho.

Again, I agree with Groucho.

Soon, Mark, I will have you completely under my spell...

Top quality cameras and top quality photographers corelate reasonably well, but there notable exceptions. I've seen some great photographers shooting with Rebels and I know of at least one decidely mediocre photographer that uses a 1DM2 and several L lenses.

(More self-deprecating humor!)

Oh sure, of course, there are always exceptions. But those who are really good and don't use a high-end camera probably aren't going to make a big deal about what kind of camera it is, and heck, are probably less likely to hang out on a forum for their camera manufacturer. Actually, that reminds me of this column I read a day or two ago.

"People want to know about pixel count, bit depth, noise at high ISOs, turn-on time, how many microns each photosite measures, what the buffer speed is, and so forth. ... ...the artists want you to get past that, and look at the subject, the visual content, and the meaning of their photographs."

I'm as guilty of obsessing over technical details as much as anyone, but at the end of the day, any DSLR can produce a photo pretty comparable to any other, it's really up to the person who's holding it and what kind of chops they have.