Need advice buying a camera
polycounter lvl 8
Hey people,
I'm looking at buying my first expensive camera, not the $200 on sale portable one that I've usually gone with, so I need some help as I have no idea about them.
I'm after something solid for collecting good reference material, ideally with nice zoom. It will pretty much be my texture and inspiration folder collector.
I guess the first question you will ask me is how much I'm looking to spend. Well in response to that, I would say at this point around $600. However I don't know whether that's not really spending enough, or if it's overspending, but that's atleast a figure to work with.
Do you guys mind providing me with a little insight on what you use or what I should be considering given what I plan to use it for?
Thanks.
I'm looking at buying my first expensive camera, not the $200 on sale portable one that I've usually gone with, so I need some help as I have no idea about them.
I'm after something solid for collecting good reference material, ideally with nice zoom. It will pretty much be my texture and inspiration folder collector.
I guess the first question you will ask me is how much I'm looking to spend. Well in response to that, I would say at this point around $600. However I don't know whether that's not really spending enough, or if it's overspending, but that's atleast a figure to work with.
Do you guys mind providing me with a little insight on what you use or what I should be considering given what I plan to use it for?
Thanks.
Replies
You won't go very far in options and lens quality, but, it's enough for texture i guess.
A. Quality, affordable vintage Minolta AF lenses
B. In-body image stabilization, something neither Canon nor Nikon offer, this makes it easier to get sharp photos no matter the lens or the lighting
C. Quality sensors, Nikon even uses Sony sensors for many of their cameras for instance.
Now Canon and Nikon make perfectly fine cameras, however the reasons above are why I shoot Sony now.
I'm also going to suggest getting a fast, sharp prime lens, like the XXXX 50mm 1.8 for whatever camera system you decide to buy into. And look hard at the used market, often you can get a 1-2 year old body for $2-300 less than the cost of a new body. Zoom lenses generally give you less sharp photos, and are slower which means they are harder to use in various lighting situations.
Here are some threads to read: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=87683
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79655
Look through them, then come back here when you have a little better idea what you're getting yourself into.
I'm actually considering the Sony Alpha DSLR-A200 which I can pickup for dirt cheap on ebay (~$300) with lense. Apparently the only difference between the A200 and the A350 is quote "the A300 is essentially an A200 with an articulating LCD screen and Live View mode, the A350 also raises the resolution from 10 megapixels to 14.2 megapixels."
I guess out of that, the only thing I'd genuinely not like having is 4.2 less megapixels, however I would be saving over $300.
The reviews seem pretty solid of it, it is however a few years old, I'm not sure how much they have really improved in that time. Reading your posts in other threads EQ, I figure given I don't need video, I could use this as a decent base, and invest money into quality lenses as time goes on if I need to.
I've been reading your posts on camera lenses and it's like trying to teach my grandpa how to use the computer, can't figure it out, I guess I'll keep doing some homework. But is there basically any lense I should look at in particular?
There is also the newer Sony 50mm 1.8 lens which is well regarded, in the $125-150 range I think.
The sony 35mm 1.8 is a very sharp lens as well, but if you're going to get the 50/1.7 I would suggest something a little wider, so what I would really suggest to pair with the 50/1.7 is:
Minolta 24mm 2.8, this is and sharp wide lens that sells for about $150-200. A cheaper alternative is the Sigma or Quantaray 24mm 2.8 lens, which sells in the $75-150 range - if you can get this on the cheap side its worth it, if you're paying near $150 you're better off with the Minolta 24mm. The Sigma/Quantary is very sharp and focuses quite close, but has pretty loud autofocus.
There is also the Minolta 28mm 2.8 that goes for about the cost of the 50mm, but it isn't well regarded.
The Sony 85mm 2.8 is supposed to be a very sharp lens as well, and it makes a good relatively short telephoto lens for anything you can't get quite close enough to. This is about $250 new. There is also the Minolta 135mm 2.8 that sells for about $350-400, which is a really nice compact telephoto lens. In this range however there are some very good telephoto zooms.
Tele zooms: Minolta 70-210mm F4 "Beercan", this thing is big and heavy, but sharp wide open with nice contrast. It sells for $125-200. I personally sold my copy of the "beercan" and got the Minolta 70-210mm 3.5-4.5 which is much more compact, and pretty comparable IQ wise, lighter with cheaper build quality but that is a plus in my book. Sells for $75-125.
So here are my recommendations, in buying order:
1. Minolta 50mm 1.7
2. 24mm lens, Minolta or Sigma/Quantaray
3. 85mm 2.8 or Tele-zoom
Its worth noting that I have a Sigma 24mm 1.8 now, which I got for a very good price used. But I wanted this lens for lowlight/nighttime shooting specifically, a 2.8 lens at this focal length should be just fine for standard daytime-ish texture refs.
Once you get a couple lenses, you'll start to figure out what you need. Don't buy any new lenses until you have a specific reason to do so - this is a good rule to live by.
Now, as far as the A200 is concerned, I'm sure it would be fine for a first time DSLR, but you may want to consider spending a little bit more and getting a Sony A550. This has the tilty screen, and a much nicer 900K dot AMOLED screen, as well as live view. Sony has the best live view in the biz as far as i'm concerned, offering very fast phase detect AF when in live view mode, while Canon/Nikon only have slow contrast detect AF. As well as better high ISO performance, and access to ISO 6400 and 12800(even if very noisey, usable in some situations I would rather have them than not). Now if its worth an extra $200 for all that stuff, I personally think it is, but I shot with a barebones 8 year old Canon 350D for a while and it didn't really prevent me from taking good photos, so thats up to you.
I use that camera and I think it's great. You can also bump up the ISO without getting too much annoying grain.
The lens depends on what you are taking photos of. The original kit lens (18-105mm) in quite nice for the price but not as sharp as the nikon 50 1.8 or such prime lenses.
The Nikon 50/1.8 is really cheap though and totally worth the money.
I use the Tamron 28-75/2.8 atm as my standard and I can recommend that one as well. It is a bit over your budget but you can get them fairly cheap used.
Some of my pics:
http://ikonane.wordpress.com/
Cheaper choice:
This is totally outdated now but I used an Minolta Dimage A1 berfore and it was awesome for the price and actually surprisingly sharp.
But the sensor and the ISO comparison to the D90 is two totally different worlds.
The D5000 and D5100 is a great quality camera, very close to the D90 but a little bit cheaper.
Ground rule - Glas > House
Prioritize lenses over houses. The better lens = better picture.
Hope that you find something that you'll be happy with!
The other lenses as you mentioned, are either out of the price range or too big (beer can lol!). But thanks for listing them I've noted them down for future reference.
I still don't reaaally see the need for the better screen with liveview, for the money that is. I'm happy just snapping away through the viewfinder. As I plan to mainly take architectural photos and walls etc. nothing where having the screen could make it HEAPS easier. Tell me if I'm wrong.
ikonane: That's ironic, I'm actually travelling to sweden in a couple weeks (hence why I'm looking at a good camera now). Those pictures are lovely. How would the Nikon 50/1.8 fair with the minota 50mm 1.7?
Unfortunately the D90/D5000/D51000 is out of the price range. I've decided to go very entry level for my first and just go with decent lenses, then switch the camera out when I know what I'm really doing. Again tell me if I'm wrong!
There isn't much reason to buy a Nikon camera other than the Nikon brand, some people will point to the fact that Nikon has excellent lenses, but so does Canon, and Sony has: Sony(some excellent affordable "easy choice" primes), Minolta(Massive back catalog of lenses, no slouch to Nikon/Canon) and Carl Zeiss(As good or better than modern Canon/Nikon) lenses. Every one of the top 3(Canon, Nikon, Sony) has access to excellent lenses, and unless you're a pro buying $1000+ lenses, the difference between systems are meaningless.
Again that D5000/D5100 camera as well as the D90 uses a Sony sensor.... So....
If you have a bunch of Nikon lenses already it makes sense to stick with Nikon, if you're new to the game Sony is a very good choice because of the sensors, in body stabilization and wide variety of cheap lenses. Used prices on bodys are also very competitive.
Third party used lenses for Minolta/Sony mount also sell for lower prices than Nikon/Canon alternatives as well.
If I was a Pro shooter I would go Canon, because IMO as far as first party lenses go, I think Canon has the best. For an amateur on a budget, Sony is very attractive. Nikon, I don't know, I don't really have a compelling reason to go with the Nikon system.
This is a very good plan. You can switch out your body in one-two years when you feel it lagging behind, but build up your lenses, which are generally the most important aspect of the system. When the prices drop on the A580 in a year or two, you'll have a solid upgrade path there.
Now don't get me wrong, the D90 is an excellent camera on its own merits, but at the end of the day you pay more(Body, lenses) for less(no IBIS, same sensors, poor live view). To be fair, I think Nikon tweaks Sony's sensors for a little better output than Sony do themselves. The D90 is also a significantly better camera than the A200, for around $500-600, but the A550 is as well.
It sort of depends on what's important to you, the D90 for instance has a bit better high ISO performance(less noise) than the A550, but with IBIS, the A550 can take photos at 2-3 stops lower ISO for static shots. So depending on the type of shooting here, the A550 would easily win. For fast moving high ISO shots, the Nikon would probably be better.
The D90 has significantly better high ISO than the A200, but if you can shoot at ISO 1600 on the A200 instead of ISO 6400 on the D90, what is the big difference?
The important thing to remember with IBIS though is that it helps to reduce motion blur cause by camera shake, but it will not reduce motion blur caused by a moving subject. So IBIS isn't great for taking photos of your friends moving around in low light. A sensor with better high ISO is what you want there.
To wrap it all up I've shot extensively with Canon and Sony, and have a bit of experience with the D80 my sister in law just had to have(because it was Nikon brand) which to me was fairly unimpressive. Oh well, when she saw my Sony, and heard how much I paid for lenses she just had to have one of those too, so it all works out. I'm not blindly hating on Nikon.
For instance, Pentax doesn't currently offer a 50mm 1.8 lens, and the 20 year old one you can find on the used market sells for $150+. I'm sure the 55mm 1.4 DA is nice, but at like $650-800 it is retardedly expensive. Consider this:
Minolta 50mm 1.4 ~$250
Sony 50mm 1.4 ~350
Canon 50mm 1.4 ~$350
Nikon 50mm 1.4 ~$250-350
Pentax 50mm 1.4 ~$350
Sigma(for all mounts) 50mm 1.4 ~$450
Minolta 85mm 1.4 $600-900 - Seriously, I could buy a used 85/1.4 for about the cost of the Pentax 55mm 1.4.
In addition to price, there is simply the matter of available lenses, the selection is just very small when it comes to pentax AF glass.
You can use legacy M42 mount lenses on Sony, IE Pentax Takumars etc. So really, being able to use K mount glass isn't anything special or unique to Pentax. Canon can use K mount, M42 and Olympus OM for instance. It really shouldn't impact the system you buy into, as virtually all systems can use legacy glass in one form or another.
Pentax is a distance 4th behind Canon, Nikon and Sony. Sure they make some good bodies, but their lens selection sucks, and is way overpriced.
Pentax has this weird niche of selling over-priced limited edition lenses to its very small userbase, I can't say I understand it at all. Oh well, i'm sure this is why Ricoh bought Pentax's camera division, not a lot of people understand it either.
I mean really, if you have some reasons for why Pentax is a good buy thats fine, but to not really even know why Pentax would be better than a Sony, or to suggest the guy should get a $700 lens when he says a $500 camera body is too expensive...
Pentax pros:
Good Sensor(Sony), this is mostly a Pro over Canon, as Sony and Nikon use Sony sensors as well.
Weather sealing on mid-rage affordable bodies, something you wont see for anyone else, outside of the Sony A77.