I pm'ed Keg and like a good forum moderator he pointed me here. Which was really good, because I didn't realize this existed. I am looking at getting into photography. I have had many times when I wished I had a good camera to take a photo that I have seen, sunset, foggy morning, landscape, hunting, etc. So here I am looking for suggestions. I have about $700 to get started. It could be more, but I would prefer to start small and have something to work up with. Most of my photos will be of nature/outdoors activities. We don't have children and are expecting any. I would love to take my camera hunting along with my gun of course, I also work for farmers on the side and have had wonderful sunsets and scenes of combines in a wheat field.

What say you? Mega Pixels? Brand? Lenses(future)? Other accessories?

one thing I have read and definately has merit is that a Camera body has a life of about 5 yrs(due to improvements etc) but GOOD GLASS will last a lifetime

I am a fan of Canon and at around $700 you arent going to get a top of the line prosumer dslr but you should be able to get a very nice rig:

I think this is one of the best deals you can find: Canon 40D with 28-135mm lens REFURBISHED at Adorama but it is a bit more than your budget($899) but is an excellent camera and not bad on the lens side...the only camera canon has at the prosumer level above the 40D is the 50D and the differences are so nominal that the 40D is probably the best deal out there right now among canon prosumer dslrs
You could buy the 40D refurbed without a lens from them for $699 http://www.adorama.com/ICA40DR.html but then you still need glass(lens)


for your money I thinjk the Rebel XSi for $690 including free shipping would be a fine rig to start with...the 18-55 IS isnt a great lens but it is decent enough...

you should also check out the links here for reviews etc.

also, fwiw I personally own a refurbed 40D that I bought from Adorama...I actually bought the set but sold the lens because I already had that range covered with my current lenses..

good luck and happy shooting.

mega pixels: as many as you can afford (but honestly unless you plan on printing above 22x30 anything 10 mp and up will be fine)
Brand: I prefer canon
Lenses: completely depends on what you will be shooting and the conditions you will be shooting in.

First off...welcome. Canon and Nikon are the #1 & #2, but Nikon is a little pricier w/ lesser features. Don't ignore the Olympus. Yeah some will snicker but it's a solid camera. Great lenses (albeit proprietary), good internal s/w, and a decent price. All 3 are paint brushes, that is, it's the artist that makes the right strokes, NOT the brush. Oly E520...
The lens is a little weak on the lower 'F' rating, but it's decent for a wide angle (28mm-84mm) 3x zoom. F2.0 lenses (they allow more light) are great but pricey.
As keg said... 5 years for the camera body...forever for the lenses you buy. Yeah, in a way you may consider you are married to a brand, but that's not a bad thing.
Bottom Line is all the main manufs have good stuff. Consider:
1) Going to a Camera Shop, not a big box store or an online shop as the local place will give you decent support, usually a 2 week trial, and you keep the local economy going.
2) Holding the camera. The grip on the Canon convinced me to go to Oly. Fat Fingers.
3) Go here Dpreview... or DCresource... or Steve's... for reviews.
4) #3 is critical!!!!
Now I'll wait for Az to contradict every thing I said! He always does.
Enjoy!
rr26

well, you've got the canon guy pitching you the canon, the olympus guy pitching you the olympus...and of course, you'll be fine with either of those, or a nikon. but I guess you may as well have the sony guy pitch you the sony.

for $700 you can get a brand new sony a230 with two lenses, an 18-55mm and a 55-200mm. that would be pretty good basic coverage, but if you wanted a little more reach with your telephoto zoom (probably a good idea if you're trying to photograph animals you're hunting), you could also get a kit with the 18-55mm and a 75-300mm, same price. they're not killer lenses or anything, but they aren't bad, and to get two AND a body for $700, all new, that's about as good as you can do.

now, why sony? they're a distant third place in the SLR market behind canon and nikon, but I really do think they're a great choice for an entry-level DSLR user. a few reasons. one, their bodies are very competitive on price for features. now, the current sony lenses are OK, they compare well with the competing platforms at the various price points. but if you hit the used market, you can use any old minolta autofocus lenses (sony bought out minolta's SLR camera business a few years back) dating back to the mid 80s and they will work flawlessly on a new sony body. that's to some extent true of canon and nikon with their old lenses as well, but minolta had huge market share back in the film days, and they were renowned for quality glass....so now, you can get some really sweet lenses for pretty good prices....like the 70-210/f4 "beercan", or the giant minolta 28-135mm designed by leica -- great old lenses that work really well for digital and go for a fraction of the price of new glass of similar quality. now another big thing about sony, it's the only major system (I believe) to have image stabilization (IS) in the camera body itself. IS is cool, because it allows you to shoot effectively with a couple f-stops less light compared with a non-IS setup. other systems have very nice IS lenses, but sony has it in the body, which allows you to take advantage with any lens you mount on it (which comes back again to using the old minolta glass). so, to sum it up, I don't think there's another brand you could go with where you could get a brand new body and two capable lenses covering wide angle out to 300mm WITH image stabilzation for your initial $700 budget.

Thanks for all the info guys. It is amazing how people are branded.



I have been leaning toward Canon since I started thinking about this. It could be advertising etc. Any concerns about refurbished?








Good points. Are the Minolta lenses hard to find, or in your opinion will Sony catch up to the big boys in lenses technology? I would think this would be the important part seeing lenses are forever.

i have never had any problems with refurbished...my canon is excellent and you couldnt tell it was refurbed....fwiw, if a camera has to come off the line for any sort of repair it has to then be sold as a refurbished unit...and from what I understand refurbs undergo even more stringent testing than normal line production...adorama also sells a 3 yr warranty for like $40 (which I did buy) that is well worth the peace of mind....I should also say that canon isnt the only refurb I have ever bought and I have never had any problems with any refurbs....

if you want to know how good canon is just think about any sporting event you see and what sorta lenses you see the photogs using....they will be predominately "white" http://www.new-b-photo.theoneaboutus.net/w...nt/Olympics.jpg
check out this phenomenal panoramic shot someone created from the olympics http://www.karikuukka.com/peking2008/100m/

the minolta lenses are all over ebay. not hard to find. but I do have to say, sony doesn't have to catch up to anybody in new lenses. they took over minolta, which has always made some of the best prosumer lenses out there, and they have an exclusive partnership with the legendary carl zeiss company. the new sony lenses are very good. but new lenses cost a decent amount of money. I point to the minolta factor simply to illustrate that, you know, you can buy a beercan for $200 on ebay and end up with a lens that outperforms a new one costing twice as much.

ok you've had recs for canon, olympus and sony. if you wanted to go nikon, wow, this looks like a helluva lot of camera for $758 bucks, shipped. brand new model getting great reviews.

I went with a (professionally) used five-year-old Fuji pro DSLR . . . shares a body, and therefore lenses, w/the Nikon D40. It's not necessarily the best solution for everyone, but I was on a much tighter budget. I sacrificed some ease of use and the comfort of buying new for a much lower price--but the features were neck-and-neck with the prosumer stuff on the shelf at the time.

I do have an irrational Fuji thing, since my mother worked at a Fuji-friendly camera shop when I was a toddler. I even had a 3' inflatable FujiFilm blimp!

Peace
policy

Glad you found something -- now invoke the first rule of digital photography: SHOOT!!!

Take 200 shots of a game, keep 20 ... :-)

You'll learn as you go, trying new exposure approaches, trying new angles, trying new composition .... shoot, shoot, shoot - pause, read, view others' images, inquire, adapt, and then, yep, SHOOT!!!