Suggest a dSLR+lens

Reactor · Dec 7, 2006

blue said:
All right, so I sold my PC and am now sitting on a relatively small pile of cash. I've yet to decide what I want to do with said pile of cash, be it an XC bike, road bike, or dSLR, so please help me along.

I shoot in lots of low light situations. Think longass exposures in dark abandoned buildings. I'd also like to shoot more bike (action) stuff, as my current P&S (Canon A620) has limited me in that regard.

Need:
-Body with 8mp or so resolution? Some of my stuff gets printed, would 8 be as low as I'd like to go for that?
-Decent all-around lens that would work well for low light stuff. Shooting bike stuff would be a secondary priority in single lens choice.
-I like to play with depth of field a lot.

I know very little about lenses/how they work in conjunction with a body...saying 18-55 to me will go right over the top of my head.

Now the ridiculous part...I'd like to keep this all around $500 plus cost for a memory card...possible? Used is fine, as long as it works.

The cannon digital rebel meets all those requirements except price, it's list about $799 body, 18-55 lens. If you shop around you can get it a little cheaper. Here is a web price of 662, with a 2 gig compact flash card You might be able to get it a little cheaper as a refurb, or from a better source.

maxyedor · Dec 7, 2006

Look into a used 20D, I just picked up one for $560 with 8k actuations. I use one as a back-up to my 1DMkII's and have another one that lives in my underwater housing, they are excelent cameras with great high ISO performance. The Rebel XT is also quite nice and pretty cheap. The 20D will cost a little more than a Rebel will, but it has a mag. body instead of plastic, shoots 5fps instead of 3fps, has a max. shutterspeed of 1/8000 instead of 1/4000, and can go to 3200 ISO, I think the Rebel will only go to 1600. The high ISO will help a lot if you want to keep a fast shutterspeed in a darker area. The 5fps and 1/8000 SS will help with bike action shots. Also the mag. body will be a little more durrable.

As far as lenses go the 18-55mm kit lens is allright but at f/3.5-5.6 it's considered a slow lens and in low light you will have to slow down your shutter quite a bit, but it does give you a nice range. 18mm is reasonably wide, about 100 degree feild of veiw, at about 34mm it has the same magnification as the natural human eye, and at 55mm it has a little bit or telephoto. Another good lens to look at is the 50mm f/1.8 it does quite well in low light situations, is decently sharp and is only about $70. There are several other inexpensive lenses that will suit your needs well, just add them to your kit as you can afford it.

Oh and take a look at the first gen. Rebel and the 10D, they are 6mpx, but megapixels aren't everything. Using Photoshop and proper technique you can enlarge the images to a few hundred feet wide without much, if any image quality loss.

Reactor · Dec 8, 2006

blue said:
How is that kit lens?

KEH has that setup used w/o memory card for 500...

Like maxyedor says, it's O.K. It's a their standard consumer lens. It think it's a pretty good lens, to get a better lens could cost quite a bit more. Compared to all in one camera, it's great.

Reactor · Dec 8, 2006

blue said:
How is that kit lens?

KEH has that setup used w/o memory card for 500...

That's a 6.3 mp used, $569 for a used 8mp in like new condition. For $69 I'd go ahead and get the 8 mp, but I know for some people money is tight.

Tmeyer · Dec 8, 2006

I was unhappy with the stock 18-55, as stated, slow but here is a shot I got with it. I invested in the 28-135 USM-IS lens and have been stoked. I love the rebel XT though, plenty of manual settings to play with but auto settings when I'm feeling lazy. I highly reccomend it... The kits are the best way to go for sure....

binary visions · Dec 8, 2006

For less than $70, this lens would be fantastic in low light:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=Search&A=details&Q=&sku=12142&is=USA&addedTroughType=search

It's not a zoom, so it won't be quite as versatile as the 18-55, but for low light, it's the bargain king.

Reactor · Dec 8, 2006

Tmeyer said:
I was unhappy with the stock 18-55, as stated, slow but here is a shot I got with it. I invested in the 28-135 USM-IS lens and have been stoked. I love the rebel XT though, plenty of manual settings to play with but auto settings when I'm feeling lazy. I highly reccomend it... The kits are the best way to go for sure....

I'm asking santa for the 28-135 USM-IS lens. I'd pretty much never have to change lenses.

narlus · Dec 8, 2006

binary visions said:
For less than $70, this lens would be fantastic in low light:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=Search&A=details&Q=&sku=12142&is=USA&addedTroughType=search

It's not a zoom, so it won't be quite as versatile as the 18-55, but for low light, it's the bargain king.

definitely yr best bet for a fast lens; nothing else will be close price-wise. i had one for a while before i made the decision that i used it enough to warrant the extra $225 and upgraded to the f/1.4 USM version.

blue, i would scan the Fred Miranda, Photography-on-the.net and other photog sites for a good deal on a used body...as max says, you can get score a sweet deal on a discontinued body if you look hard enough. the new rebel XTi has some major upgrades as compared to the rebel XT (and correspondingly so to the original digi rebel), and as that's got a list price of $800 or so (for the XTi), deals are out there.

similarly, the 30D (camera i have, and paid about $1200 for) has made 20D prices drop further and further (and people think the 40D isn't too far off).

Kornphlake · Dec 8, 2006

Everybody else has pretty much covered bodies and lenses so I'll throw something different into the ring.

Buy a Nikon F100.

I know film is so last century but for long exposures you don't have much choice, unless the latest generation cmos sensors are leaps and bounds better than what was available a year ago (which isn't an issue because you can't afford the new stuff anyway.) Digital photos get a lot of noise with longer exposures and it's worse with higher ISO, this has always been the achilies heel of digital cameras. As far as I know the pros are still using film for exposures longer than a few seconds.

narlus · Dec 8, 2006

how long of an exposure are you thinking, blue?

the 350D (rebel xt) has pretty damn good noise control @ ISO 1600, but i never took > 1 second shots w/ it (aside from some attempted full moon shots which came out crappy, but it wasn't a noise factor).

Reactor · Dec 8, 2006

Here's a thought.

$560 for a brand new pentax k100D with lens. Don't know much about them now, but the film cameras were nice. I believe Sony bought them. And with the $50 rebate, it works out to $511 + shipping.

or a brand new Digital rebel (8 mp) $585.

narlus · Dec 8, 2006

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=246198

Transcend · Dec 8, 2006

Reactor said:
Here's a thought.

$560 for a brand new pentax k100D with lens. Don't know much about them now, but the film cameras were nice. I believe Sony bought them. And with the $50 rebate, it works out to $511 + shipping.

or a brand new Digital rebel (8 mp) $585.

If he is shooting long exposure, low light stuff, he will be much better served with a canon due to the sensor type. It shows much lower noise on these types of exposures. The nikon/sony/pentax sensors (all made by sony) have much higher noise in these types of shots.

Reactor · Dec 8, 2006

Transcend said:
If he is shooting long exposure, low light stuff, he will be much better served with a canon due to the sensor type. It shows much lower noise on these types of exposures. The nikon/sony/pentax sensors (all made by sony) have much higher noise in these types of shots.

That's good to know.

I really, really, like my digital rebel XT.

maxyedor · Dec 8, 2006

Kornphlake said:
Everybody else has pretty much covered bodies and lenses so I'll throw something different into the ring.

Buy a Nikon F100.

I know film is so last century but for long exposures you don't have much choice, unless the latest generation cmos sensors are leaps and bounds better than what was available a year ago (which isn't an issue because you can't afford the new stuff anyway.) Digital photos get a lot of noise with longer exposures and it's worse with higher ISO, this has always been the achilies heel of digital cameras. As far as I know the pros are still using film for exposures longer than a few seconds.

I've done a few 2-3 hour exposures on my 20Ds and 1Ds and not really noticed an absurd amount of noise. The reason you want a film body for super long exposures is that an old school full manual body doesn't need batteries, so you can lock the shutter open forever if you want and not have to worry. If your battery dies mid-exposure on a 3 hour star trail shot you're screwed and have to start all over. I still preffer medium format film for this type of work, but then you're talking about some real cash.

The noise comes at high ISO's wich you don't need for long exposures, typicly those will be shot at between ISO 50 and 400 depending on the effect you're after.

Transcend · Dec 8, 2006

maxyedor said:
I've done a few 2-3 hour exposures on my 20Ds and 1Ds and not really noticed an absurd amount of noise. The reason you want a film body for super long exposures is that an old school full manual body doesn't need batteries, so you can lock the shutter open forever if you want and not have to worry. If your battery dies mid-exposure on a 3 hour star trail shot you're screwed and have to start all over. I still preffer medium format film for this type of work, but then you're talking about some real cash.

The noise comes at high ISO's wich you don't need for long exposures, typicly those will be shot at between ISO 50 and 400 depending on the effect you're after.

Same here on my mark 2. The 10d would show hot pixels and a bit of noise at 100iso, but the 1dmk2 is much better.

As for MF, it isn't that expensive. You can get a body, lens and cartridge used for under $1000. Pretty damn good deal if you want to get into MF. Hell, for $1500 new you can get some of the lower end Hassy bodies.

maxyedor · Dec 8, 2006

True, I've seen basic Hassy set-ups go for less that a grand, but Blue's go $500 so it's up there. You can get some of the Russian knock-offs for cheap too, but it won't be as versitial as a DSLR so I wouldn't want it to be my only camera.

Transcend · Dec 8, 2006

Ya agreed, not in his budget, but from an overall standpoint, MF is fairly cheap!

His best bet would be a used 20d if he can find one with a 50mm 1.8.

Transcend · Dec 8, 2006

Not so much bad. They just have a noisy high ISO or long exposure. Their flash sync is MUCH faster than canon's, so for some it is a better low light camera.

maxyedor · Dec 8, 2006

Nikon's flash sync is the same as Canon on all their models except the D70.

Perhaps the best reason to get a Canon though at this stage of the game is that 80% of amatures shoot Canon so as they upgrade gear the market has a better supply of good used Canon gear. Untill I started doing buisness with the shop I buy my gear from now, I bought all my gear used and saved thousands. Now I get a serious hook-up and and save thousands.

Suggest a dSLR+lens

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