Choosing a camera... - General

ive just started dong photography using my Friends camera (a Canon 500D EOS).... I have got £400 and im Looking at buying a DSLR camera... Ive looked at many different cameras and read many reviews, but i was hoping to get some good advice from the people of Facepunch.. theres nothing they dont know... :dance:

If you don't mind buying used stuff you could get a 450D body for £300 or 40D for £350 of [url]http://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk[/url] and then buy a 50mm 1.8. I'm looking to sell my kit lens so if you want you could buy it off me seeing as you live in England.

There is no such thing as THE best camera. It always depends on what you need i.e. a movie function with 1080p? Go into a shop and check out which camera has the best feeling in your hands, that's like the most important thing. If you're good and you have an artistic eye the camera model is irrelevant.

Yeah, if you only need it for photos, I would just get a body with 8MP or more and invest in good lenses instead.

Go with Nikon, in my opinion, there's a dedicated button you can push and it quickly explains the setting you have selected in camera. Good for beginners.

[QUOTE=Roll_Program;29696401]Go with Nikon, in my opinion, there's a dedicated button you can push and it quickly explains the setting you have selected in camera. Good for beginners.[/QUOTE] :rolleyes: Not like it takes long to learn everything by messing around or watching tutorials. Shouldn't buy a camera because of the settings explanation.

It's useful if you're out taking photos and you think "Hmm what does this do". [editline]8th May 2011[/editline] It seriously helped me learn with a D60. [editline]8th May 2011[/editline] Oh, and you don't get chromatic aberration with modern Nikon cameras.

[QUOTE=Roll_Program;29696663]Oh, and you don't get chromatic aberration with modern Nikon cameras.[/QUOTE] Haha what?

I just read the whole manual in order to find out all the odd features that aren't obvious.

[QUOTE=LarparNar;29696771]Haha what?[/QUOTE] It's true, the in camera image processor removes them, so in the RAW image file there's none, without any cost to image quality, so you don't need to worry if your lens has CA. The D300, D300s, D3, D3s, D3000, D3100, D5000, D5100, D90, D7000 and D700 have this.

Most camera software has chromatic aberration removal, it's nothing new. It almost never gets everything either way, but manual removal of CA is pretty easy. Didn't know Nikon's did it on the camera processor.

Nikon's in processor correction seems to do a far better job than software in post, probably because it has more data to deal with before putting the results into a raw file.

being a canon user, i'd recommend an entry level canon (450d, 500d or something), maybe with a 28 or 30mm lens (f/1.4 or 1.8) my first lens after the kit lens was the 50 f/1.8, but if you just walk about with it you'll probably quickly find that it's a bit too long for most things. i got a 28mm manual lens and now it pretty much lives on my camera.

[QUOTE=Roll_Program;29697505]Nikon's in processor correction seems to do a far better job than software in post, probably because it has more data to deal with before putting the results into a raw file.[/QUOTE] I thought RAW data was exactly what the sensor gets? Hence why it's called RAW. It's not a big deal though, CA removal is piss easy in Photoshop when you do it manually.

I guess we don't need an image processor in cameras then. RAW is the raw data once it gets processed by the image processor (but not compressed). If it didn't got through the image processor, it would be a mess of analogue signals directly from the sensor.

I vote Nikon because my D3000 was the perfect camera to ease me into Photography while giving me better results as I learned to use its functions. The movie mode is better on Canon DSLR's, that's about it. See if you can pick up a D3000/D3100.

Well it still has to be converted to meaningful numbers / moved to the memory card. And in some cases, saved as JPG. I'm not saying the chromatic aberration removal thing isn't there or isn't better than usual, I'm just saying I don't know how it works and that I thought RAW data is exactly what the sensor gets, stored in meaningful numbers. [editline]8th May 2011[/editline] @Roll.

Just edited my post.

Yes, but in that case the processor wouldn't be able to do shit with it before it's processed either way. Or am I completely wrong?

It can mess with analogue signals, before the image is totally turned digital for the raw format.

Yeah, but that wouldn't do much meaningful since the camera can't understand the analog signals before converting them. [editline]8th May 2011[/editline] Unless of course chromatic aberration analog signals look different in a significant way and thus can be filtered out.

To be honest I'm no expert, and this is the limit of my knowledge, but I do know that after moving from a D60 to a D90, the removal of CA in my D90 looks quite a bit better than removing CA in photoshop from my D60.

Honestly at his level it doesn't matter at all if he chooses a nikon or a canon. Just let him decide.

Why the fuck would anyone recomend a d3000 to another human being? That goes beyond cruelty, and if it being known for being Nikon's worst DSLR wasn't bad enough, then you realize you can get much better cameras for the same price. Get a d40, a d50, a d60, a d200 or a Pentax k-x, k100, k10d, or a Sony A200, or Canon 400d or 450d. All those cameras fit in your budget and with some of them you can even afford an extra lens, while being much better bodies in nearly every aspect.

Roll_program I find the amount of useless features your toting as life changing hilarious. [editline]8th May 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=The Un-Men;29698543]Why the fuck would anyone recomend a d3000 to another human being? That goes beyond cruelty, and if it being known for being Nikon's worst DSLR wasn't bad enough, then you realize you can get much better cameras for the same price. Get a d40, a d50, a d60, a d200 or a Pentax k-x, k100, k10d, or a Sony A200, or Canon 400d or 450d. All those cameras fit in your budget and with some of them you can even afford an extra lens, while being much better bodies in nearly every aspect.[/QUOTE] He can also get a 40d.

I find your exaggeration hilarious?

Also come on dude you can't choose a camera because of an in-body basic guide. You got the internet! And believe me you'll feel silly once you realize you have grown over what the camera can teach you and you find everything you needed here. How many people do you think learned using that guide?

Get the camera that offeres the best iso performance, not a fucking drawing of an aperture.

ISO noise perf isn't all there is to image quality, by the way.

[QUOTE=Roll_Program;29700273]ISO noise perf isn't all there is to image quality, by the way.[/QUOTE] yeah, but it's a damn big part of it. what else is, just so we can all know?