photography buffs, help me buy a DSLR camera

[Jonny]

I personally like Canon better and own a 30D. I couldn't be happier at the price point. IMO canon has better lenses, but you really can't go wrong with canon or nikon.

[bigbootch]

[ QUOTE ]
www.kenrockwell.com has good reviews of DSLRs, he shoots mostly Nikon but has recently been shooting with Canons as well.


[/ QUOTE ]

QFT, /thread. Go to the "Technical" section of his webpage, and you'll find many articles that will answer all of the questions about your specific situation. This guy really knows his stuff, but just as important, he's not some snooty photography buff who looks down on any point&shoot. quite the opposite, he's very no nonsense, use whatever works, type of guy.

That, and dpreview.com can be helpful too, but that I think mostly for reference information and such.

-bigbootch

[4 High]

I like DCresource as well.

Anyone know a good site to figure out if i should get a photo printer or not, and if so which one?

[gusmahler]

[ QUOTE ]
I like DCresource as well.

Anyone know a good site to figure out if i should get a photo printer or not, and if so which one?

[/ QUOTE ]

Rockwell says to use your local Costco or drugstore.

To me, one of the conveniences of digital is the ability to make my own prints without having to go to the drugstore to pick them up. The only site I know of with printer reviews is http://www.photo-i.co.uk/

[4 High]

I was at Walmart yesterday doing a return and getting Digital Photos printed just seemed so damn cheap. It was like 14 cents for each one if you are willing to wait 2 days or 19 cents if you can wait an hour. With it being that cheap i just have to wonder should i really get a printer? With how expensive ink is i wonder how many photos i would have to print per year to make it worth it.

[gusmahler]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I chose the Nikon D80 over the D40 because of lens compatability - I have a significant investment in Nikor lenses that would not work on the D40.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's my only real problem with the Nikon. Apparently, there is no auto-focus inside the body of the camera. That means that every lens you ever use with this camera must have an auto-focus built into the lens. I'm wondering if this is going to be a problem in the future.

[/ QUOTE ]The same is true for Canon lenses also (the AF is in the lens, not the body). But you shouldn't worry about that at all. Canon and Nikon will be around and making compatible lenses for a long time.


[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I was mistaken here. (Typical Canon user, I know little about the Nikon system.) This is something I would worry about also.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here's some background. Back in the 80s, Nikon had its F-mount lenses and Canon had its FD-mount. But when Nikon and Canon started switching to autofocus, they took different paths.

Canon completely dumped the FD mount and developed the EF mount, with the AF motor located in the lens. The end result is that all Canon's autofocus lenses will completely work on all Canon AF bodies. But none of the MF lenses will work.

Nikon didn't want to abandon the F-mount, so it modified it by putting the motor in the camera and putting a screw drive mechanism in the mount, to drive the AF motor. Lenses compatible with this format are designated "AF".

Later, Nikon started making lenses where the AF motor is built into the lens. These lenses are designated AF-S. This is all fine and good until Nikon released the D40 and D40X. Neither body has an AF motor. So none of the AF lenses will operate on this body in AF mode (though they will operate as Manual focus lenses.)

The end result is that you must consult a lens compatibility chart (like this one: http://www.nikonians.org/nikon/slr-lens.html ) to determine what features will be working with a particular lens/body combination.

It would seem that the inability to use a large number of Nikon lenses with the D40 would seem to render useless the purpose of getting a Nikon body (access to the Nikon range of lenses). OTOH, there are a lot of AF-S lenses, so maybe it's not that much of a handicap. You'd have to ask a Nikon user for more specifics, though.

And to go off on another Rockwell rant, on this page, he praises the compatibility of all Nikon lenses on all Nikon bodies, going paragraph after paragraph lavishing praise on them. Then you go to this page and you realize that a whole bunch of Nikon lenses don't fully work with the D40. They will mount, but the meter won't work or the AF won't work. Funny how he doesn't mention that while praising the compatibility. A lot more of today's users would care more about whether old lenses fit on new bodies than if new lenses fit on old bodies (which is the focus of the first link).

[kerowo]

The nicest thing about having a photo printer in your home is you can tweak the color in the images and re-print in a couple of minutes instead of a couple of days. However, if you aren't going to be doing a lot of printing on-line sites like Mpix or Adorama are probably more cost effective. And at Adorama (and maybe Mpix, I haven't looked for a while) you can get metalic papers which really make blue sky look nice.

[gusmahler]

[ QUOTE ]
Is there a huge difference in quality say between a...

Carl Zeiss and a Schneider-Kreuznach compared to a DSLR lens on a Nikon or Canon?

[/ QUOTE ]

There are user reviews at http://www.photodo.com/products.html that have very high ratings for Carl Zeiss. But that site has no standardized tests for Carl Zeiss.

However, that site reviews across lens formats and the highest rating they've ever given is to a Canon EF lens. In general, the best Canon and Nikon lenses fare well against even the best Leica lenses. But there are no bad or even Leica lenses, and there are average Nikon and Canon lenses

Schneider, isn't that a Large format lens? Why would one compare a large format lens to an SLR lens?

[4 High]

I know next to nothing about how different lens work, so i was just asking in general quality wise how they compare. If they can't be compared, disregard the question.

[SuitedDucks]

go with canon. its a bigger company and has more lens variety.

also invest in lenses. they are more important than the body anyway.

to answer the question, i would get a used 30d and a 28-135is lens.