Okay, so my wife is a picture-taking maniac; she has something like 17K pics of our kids on her iMac. She's been rocking a midlevel Fuji consumer camera (FinePix S5200 I think). She's worn off all the knobs, and lately the battery door has fallen off, too--resorting to using a big rubber band to keep the batteries in the thing!

She's not very gear-oriented or technically minded in general, but she's very very picky about her photo quality. She likes to sort of clean everything up with iPhoto after the fact, but there are obviously limits to that. She's been wanting to step up to a DSLR for quite some time, but the scratch to even get the very entry-est level DSLR is no joke. I came up with the bright idea of going used, and ended up Shopping Victoriously for a professionally-used, manaiaclly-well-cared-for Fuji FinePix S2 Pro. It's an older model, but it looks like it was like a $2K unit when new. Most of the DSLRs I've seen have had pretty advanced 'auto' and 'macro' modes, and the sheer power of the thing should be a step up--but my wife's intimidated by the idea of having to learn all the "real" photgraphy techniques, etc.

Are there any good "basics" tutorials online? Any good layman's-terms how-tos? Ideally I'd like to send her to a class, but that's not going to fit into our time and money budget at the moment.

Peace
policy

you can seriously put any current DSLR on an "auto" mode and anyone can take some beautiful pics with it. most of them have different preset modes as well, optimized for shooting sports, portrait, macro, landscape, etc.

if your wife is that into taking photos, getting her an SLR is a no-brainer IMO. I don't know that I would go used, though. the tech upgrades the last several years have been FAST. maybe it was worth 2 grand in 2002, that doesn't mean it ought to be worth even a few hundred now. if you do go used, I would go with a more recent model. something from the last 2 or 3 years. but you can get a new SLR for 500 bucks.

as far as tutorials, whatever camera she ends up with, they'll make one of those magic lantern guides. I hear those are pretty good. I know there's this guy gary friedman that writes very simple, but explanatory and useful guides for sony/minolta SLRs, but I don't think he does them for the other brands.

you can get some great deals on refurbs and used(KEH.com)

first thing you have to do is come up with a budget and then it will be easier to help with recommendations...

i will be back with recommendations on reading materials too
easily I would suggest starting with Understanding Exposure

Good info above. The technology has taken quantum leaps in the past few years. A used 3+ year old camera is worth very little. A 2002 camera, probably 4-5 MP, w/ TIFF and no RAW, meh. Take a pass on that. She'd be better off w/ a current higher end P&S. You could check out a local Ma/Pa camera shop. Many take trade ins, and refurb them. And while were on that subject, really consider buying from a local camera store vs the big box or internet. The help they can provide you is well worth the price difference.

If she has the time, there is no substitute for a few college (CC) classes. But I realize time w/ a family time is at a premium.
I have 10 or more links to Olympus stuff (How to's). Granted it's dedicated to Oly, but the principles are all the same. (DOF, Shooting Flash, Macro, etc.) If you buy a Canon or Nikon... not that I think they're the best , have some very good instructional DVD's, Books, and newsletters that do a very good job. The online photo schools I looked at are a rip, very $$$.

If you want the links let me know and I can send them to you or post them here.
Good Luck.

Well . . . crap. Wish I'd come here first, If I didn't make it clear, I'd already bought the older DSLR off eBay. It was only $260, and once I throw in a lens, we're talking about the upper end of my budget. Even the lowest-end current DSLR was probably just out of reach . . . I can't believe that a 6.1 (it interpolates to 12.2) megapixel pro camera with every concievable option and adjustment onboard is going to get outlclassed by a P&S. If so . . . well, I guess that's my bad.

Still, I appreciate the advice. I think how she takes to this camera and learning the 'how-to's will determine how seriously we take this going forward . . . as such, the more recommended reading--both books and URLs--I can get from you folks, the better. Thanks for the recs on the Magic Lantern guides & Understanding Exposure. rocknrobn, if you wanna hit me with those links, go for it.

Peace
policy

ah, sorry I misread. I'm sure the camera will take some great pictures, better than a point and shoot for sure. what you lose going with an older pro-type camera compared to a newer one is some of the easiness. but in a way, that's good, because it accellerates the learning curve as far as learning what goes in to taking good pictures. what kind of lens did you get?

Actually, I've held off on the lens until I know a little bit more. The camera accepts Nikon F-mount lenses, but I'm not entirely sure of the sizes/stops needed. It's been explained to me that the "10x zoom" that comes with many advanced P&S or hybrid lenses is actually a pretty wide range, and that with an SLR you'd be better off with an 'everyday' lens and a 'whoa zoom' lens, instead of going for the maximum possible range. Any recommendations on what to go for would be great; the majority of pics my wife takes are outdoor action shots of our kids--though with my eldest starting ballet, low-light situations are also in the offing.

Peace
policy

well, nikon makes a lot of lenses, and the f mount goes way way back...so you should be able to hit the used market and get some nice stuff. (with lenses I really think it's often a GOOD idea to go with older gear, you can often get nice stuff that works really well with the new bodies at good prices). I don't know nikon lenses, so I can't really give specific recommendations...but yeah, you may just want to start with a standard zoom, which will probably be something like 18-70mm. the smaller number is the focal length at the wide end, and the larger number is the focal length at the telephoto end. a lot of old film lenses start at 28mm on the wide end, but with most digital SLR sensors you have a 1.5x crop factor, because the digital sensors are smaller than a 35mm film frame, and 28mm becomes not very wide on the wide end. so something starting at 16, 17, 18mm is a better fit for digital. on the long end, personally I wouldn't want a walk-around lens that ended at like 50 or 55 mm. it's just not much reach.

for your "whoa zoom", you'll probably just want to look for something that's like 70 or 75mm out to 210 or 300mm. you might consider just buying one zoom with a large range, though. now that I think of it, I remember hearing really good things about the nikon 18-200mm zoom. you'll probably be paying 500 bones for that, even used, though. but it looks like the sigma 18-200 can be had for about 250 (sigma is a lensmaker that makes lenses for all of the major mounts). that's one lens that would be good for just about anything.

for low light, you may want to consider a fixed focal length (prime) lens. 50mm is the most common (and therefore most cheap). for most mounts, you can get a used 50mm, f1.7 or 1.8, for like 50 bucks....and it will absolutely blow away your cheap zooms as far as image quality, and be a stellar performer in low light. the downside of course is if you want to zoom you have to do it with your feet. you can get low-light zooms (with a max aperture of f2.8) but those get pretty expensive.

I decided to go this route to get started. I picked up a 50mm f1.8 AF Nikkor lens last night, and the camera arrived during the day. My wife is going crazy with the pics . . .

My youngest . . .

the middle, after a scrape (not in the mood for posing)

the eldest, playing with dirt (she's got mad hops)

The camera said "SLOW" and "REAR" on one of the displays, so we think the shutter might have been set a little slow (some pics had washed-out whites, which I figured meant overexposure? don't really know). No idea what "REAR" means, either. She's poring over the manual while fiddling with it, so enlightenment is eventually coming--but in the meantime, she's getting tons of pics.

Any thoughts?

Peace
policy

just guessing here, but the REAR probably an indicator where the camera is thinking you have a backlighting situation. the light meter will usually measure all the light in the frame to come up with the right combination of exposure time, aperture, and ISO setting ("film"/sensor speed). let's say you're inside standing in front of a bright window and I'm going to take a picture of you, and you're in the middle of the frame and the bright window fills the rest of it. well, if it averages all of the light readings, the photo is going to have you totally underexposed, looking like a black shadow, because the rest fo the frame is so much brighter. if it senses the backlit situation and adjusts, you may be properly exposed in the photo, but the background is going to be predominantly blown-out white. the thing to remmeber is that a camera sensor cannot fully detect and render the wide range of brightness levels the human eye can accommodate. shadows become very pronounced in very bright lighting situations (like direct midday sunlight) and it is difficult if not impossible to get really nicely exposed photos in that kind of light.

the SLOW thing may just be an indicator of an overall low-light situation. like it is telling you it is going to need to use a slow shutter speed to get a good exposure.

The SLOW part is a default setting for Lions fans.