Ok,
Now that the season’s major time burner is over –
It has come to my attention that I really do not do much of anything anymore LOL. So, I am going to see about taking a basic digita photography class at our local county community center. I also am asking for suggestions on a new camera. I know many of you seem to prefer Nikon’s but then there is the Canon. Ummmm I am so confused. My sony does not let me change lenses and when shooting zoomed in the evil purple crap is way to obvious. I have enough troubles without all that going on too.
I also have now come into possession of my grandfather’s and fathers tripods. On is circa 1920’s, heavy, and big. The other one is lighter and I am not sure how old it is really. It is still heavy compaired to modern day tripods. Put it is super cool looking, stable, and has a history. I also was given a small portable one that only goes about 6inches up. I think they are trying to tell me that I do not have a steady hand LOL.
So, which camera and why? Karoli? I know you have help on this one!
What lenses are the most important to purchase?
Woo hoo — you’re going to have some fun with whatever you get. I’ll give you the high-level overview here and put a longer blog post about it up on my blog later tonight.
Before I had the Nikon I was a Canon owner through-and-through. The only reason I switched to Nikon was because BigDog and Sticks had Nikon film cameras and lots of lenses, so it made sense to stay with the same system.
With that said, I really like the Nikon better than the Canon,and now that they’ve come through with their entry-level DSLR (the D-40), I’d consider that as the camera of choice. Canon has a competitive product as well (the Rebel) but I think Nikon has an easier system to learn and manage.
The downside to Nikon is that their RAW format images (which I recommend as the shooting mode of choice) are in a proprietary format. It’s not a big deal if you use their software to process them (or Photoshop Elements on the entry-level end of photo processing software), but I wish they’d all standardize on one RAW format and be done with it.
The D40 is a great value at $549 or so (that’s what it was at Circuit City last week, anyway), and it comes with a kit lens — 18-70mm — which is a good general duty lens. The lenses you invest in after the kit are best off being “prime lenses”; that is, not zooms but one length. I’ve found some terrific used lens deals at our local camera shop that keep the bank from being broken but are in great shape and for about half of what you’d pay new.
So there ya go….more on the blog a bit later. 🙂
Thank you for responding LOL fast! Seems I am not the only one up this late.
My roomates nephew takes photos for fashion types. Models etc and has some deal with a new jeans importer. any woo he is good I hear. He suggested the Canon’s emmm but I knew you liked the nikons. One of the camera shops hear hates non camera companies – companies with their hands in many pots. My other buddy who spends 1,000 of bucks (no joke) a month on camera stuff – likes the nikons. I am so confused LOL.
Lense prices count here too LOL
how about this deal?
nikon package for $799.99
I already have PhotoshopCS and downloaded something that lets it read my sony raw files. I am trying out a 30 trial of Image prog for organizing my photos over the photoshop elements but I believe it is way to complicated for my simple mind LOL it is just that elements backup and the one that is installed on my puter do not play well together. So I have to manually back up everything because the elements always prompts me to update my backup but always throws a database to big to use this media – LOL hello – duh cd discs – well it used to work on the old computer!
I am going to really think through the purchase as a messed up last time with getting the sony.
the other info I own the compact flash the canon uses 1gig and also have 4 512 scandisk mems LOL the only thing that I really like about the sony is that it uses memory sticks, scandisk, microdrive, compact flash …..
Whoa, I just saw your comment — that’s a great deal on the D40- Didja get it?
LOL the camera is now on hold 🙁 seems my truck
20042002 Tacoma with only 36,000 miles on in now needs tires. Yep, did ya know that they can go bad just sitting there LOL. The two in the front were ate up a bit on the last trip. The ball joint was a recall issue that I put off getting fixed. Go figure it went gaga when on a trip.I had the spare moved to replace the tire that was the most cupped but alas the poor rubber donuts are now wiggling down the road cause they are so dang old. Rubber rot! Ha ha . … and that is where the money will go.
Boo hoo boo hoo . … she whines as she fight the impulse to go charge the dang thing . … whimper whimper whine …………