Equipment Need help turning christmas money into a nice DSLR + lens

Yeh, i think all models above the D7000 have them (not 100% sure about that as i haven't been looking at the higher priced models). looking at it the other way round - the cheap Nikons don't have them (D3100 and D5000) They're the only ones i can afford

 

I'm glad i found this thread; I too am in exactly the same spot as yourself; £600 budget and just starting off. I too am leaning towards the 550D which seems to be an excellent starting point and will happily benefit from better lenses as you grow in experience.

There is some sound advise on here, especially the part about taking loads with the standard 18-55mm kit lens to see what your style is.

If, like me, you've been pouring over reviews; check this channel out on youtube; DigitalRev these guys are marginally more interesting than all the dry reviews i found. Also, they play with some expensive kit which is nice to see.

 

It's not just Nikon bodies which have a top LCD screen.....the higher-end models of all manufacturers have them, whether it's Nikon, Canon, even Sony or Pentax. On Nikon bodies it starts with the D90/D7000/D300s and with Canon it's the 60D/7D. I'm not sure about others though, but you'll normally have to spend close to £1000 for the body alone if you want those sort of features (there are exceptions of course, as the D90 is fairly cheap now).

 

Annoyingly, all the £480 550D cameras have disappeared from ebay almost overnight - I havnt expected the VAT increase to affect it too much... next cheapest is £510, and its branded as a Kiss x4 (Japanese 550D). I know the labeling shouldn't make any difference, but it sort of puts me off

 

I would have used the edit button, but... 800th post! (on second thoughts, my 800th post being a double isn't good form)

Bit the bullet - Bought the 550D (or rather the kiss x4. i hope that isn't going to bug me too much!)

Also got a metal SD card never thought an SD card could look sexy.
Plus some other essentials. Added up to £580... Can't wait

 

Congrats! Be sure to post some photos here when you get it!

 

Just saw this too late, there's a guy selling Kiss X4s for £495 with an 8gb card, gonna buy one once I recover from getting the car fixed

That metal card sure is purty though...

 

Dayum. where was it, and what was the postage?. I ended up paying £509 for the camera and £10 postage... could have got it £10 cheaper, but the seller only had 23 feedback, all for cheap items, so figured it wasn't worth the risk.

 

Clicky

Or did you get yours with a lens? In which case, WHERE?

Shouldn't take me much more than a month to be back within reach, hopefully.

 

With a lens, from ebay, and look what i just found for £500. £20 cheaper and doesn't even say Kiss x4 on it (refurbished though)

Hope its still there when you're ready to buy. At the risk of going OT, what happened to ure car?

And i had a look for the old SLR stuff my dads got somewhere... couldnt find most of it but there it a sigma 70-210mm lens i might be able to get an adaptor for. All the filters were for 49mm diameter lenses Anyone know if these are still used, because i've got about 10 rather nice looking filters for them.
I remember another bag, but can't find it, which is quite annoying, because iirc it had another telephoto lens in it.

 

Hey Gryphon, just seen this thread. Take particular note to the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens for £55.
I got my 550D at the weekend and bought one of these lenses for it at the same time. The build quality is a little on the downside, but the pics i've taken with it are far more impressive that the stock kit lens.
£55 is a great price, ones on ebay go for £20 - £30 more, which is crazy as new they're £85.

 

Thanks for the tip I might just call second dibs on that (too late for first :/)

My camera finally arrived today Loving it, although now it has to go on the shelf until my exams are over.

Talking about fast lenses, i took a few pics of it using my flatmates panasonic GF1, with a 30mm f1.7 lens. I was already getting jealous of it



Edit: Just done some googling... Think I might go for that lens
Re Edit: missed it :/

 

Nice old ladies and fake insurance details make for unhappy times... Only had to replace a wing, headlamp and grill though, could have been worse.

I'm pretty much able to afford the camera already, just waiting till payday so I have a bit of a cushion again after I click buy

I've had four lenses sitting staring at me for the last month, it's been torture!

 

I've been using my 550D and my flatmates 500D, and havnt really noticed the difference with the final photos (although he's got a much better eye for lightroom tweaking than me).

I really like my camera, but i think if i was buying again i'd have gone for a 500D body, and got a decent lens along with it. As you've got lenses i guess its not a problem, but getting a sharp picture with the kit lens is almost impossible. I impulse bought a canon 28-105 f3.5 usm lens on ebay a few days ago - it was going for £125 which seemed to be £10-£20 cheaper than the norm on ebay, and £40 less than amazon, and it had a hood an decent quality UV filter with it. When no-one bid on it, i put in £126, not really expecting to get it... I figured i could always sell it on amazon if i decided it wasn't worth it. It arrived monday, and i'm never going back to the kit lens (still not sure i can really afford it though)

I still haven't got any pics i'm happy enough with for potd though :/

 

My friend has a 500D and a 50mm 1.8 which he swears by, said he'd never touch the kit lens again either. I was almost tempted when I found a couple of 550s for ten or twenty quid more than I was planning to spend with the 18-55 thrown in but I know rightly I'd never use it either. Plus the body-only I was watching just got another £30 cheaper

Really the only reason I'm going for a 550 over the 500 is the video capabilities, they're the main reason I'm buying anything at all.

I highly recommend you look into FD lenses if you want a cheap way to expand your arsenal. Granted I haven't personally tried them yet but there's a roaring trade on ebay so even if you don't like one you'll be able to shift it again handily enough. I've spent ~£130 so far - including postage and an adapter - and that's got me two 35-70mms (one macro, one not, figure I'll keep whichever one I prefer using), a 75-200mm and a 28mm.

I knew I wasn't gonna be keeping the kit lens for long when I first started thinking about going down the dslr route but once someone (I forget who but rep is coming your way if it hasn't already) posted a video about using fds, I decided I didn't even need to get it in the first place.

Edit: they are entirely manual though, I'm fine with that because I was never going to be using auto-focus anyway and the manual focus on any of the cheaper EOS lenses I've used is horrible, especially for video work. Just a word of warning if you wouldn't be up for dialling in exposure and focus by hand

 

Don't the FD lenses need an adapter to fit on the EF or EF-S mounts? I'd thought they had manual apature as well, so you would only be able to use them wide open, but i'm not sure if I've read that or just assumed it from other old lenses I've seen. Sounds like you've got some good deals though, and as auto focus doesn't do anything in video, they should be good

The auto focus on the kit lens works, but it wasn't nice to use so i used manual more, but with a USM lens, things just jump into focus immediately, i love it

I've also found that getting manual focus right can be tricky as the viewfinder is pretty small, and has no focusing aid...

 

About the FD lenses, they aren't worth mounting on Canon bodies. Quoting from http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-manual-lenses/ :

"FD lens mounts are smaller in diameter, have a different lens register from EF lenses, rely on mechanical levers to control lens aperture, are of a breech-lock design (rotating pressure ring) and never contain autofocus motors.* EF lens mounts are larger in diameter, are of a bayonet mount design (put lens into camera and rotate partway to lock), support electronic control of the lens aperture and the lenses usually contain autofocus motors.

So. When it comes to adapting FD lenses to EOS cameras the key difference here is the lens register incompatibility. Adapters for Canon FD-mount lenses, including the two adapter models that Canon themselves sold at one point, must deal with this incompatibility somehow. Either they contain optics (glass lens elements) to compensate for the register difference and retain infinity focus or else they don’t contain optics and don’t retain infinity focus. There’s no way around this"

That said, many other older mounts can work. Personally, I just recently picked up a bunch of older pentax gear (some of really sharp, like the 135 f/3.5), and they mount perfectly, with a $5 screw adapter.

EDIT: Some more good info here : http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/manual_focus_EOS.html

 

I dunno if they're getting paid to sell EF lenses or what but none of that is a good reason not to try a few fds. Lack of auto aperture and focus is irrelevant, to me anyway, I was trained on video cameras and auto was a dirty word

I really don't get the point they're trying to make about the adapters needing a glass element to retain infinity focus, most adapters do so what's the big deal? Just don't buy one that doesn't Plus the adapter turns it into a bayonet mount, I plan on buying one for each lens just to speed things up.

As I said, the lack of auto capabilities doesn't bother me in the slightest, I'd never be using them if they were there. If you could also live without them it's an incredibly inexpensive way to experiment with various lenses, you can always sell them on and move up to the EF variant. Which I plan to do at some point, don't get me wrong but I have nothing like the means to amass such a collection just yet. A quick search of ebay tells me I would be spending around £500 to upgrade what I have already to EF.

Clicky

 

The old lenses I've seen have had levers on the mount for the camera to change the apature
and no ring on the lens itself, which is why i though they'd have to be wide open. Sounds like you've got one hell of a good deal with them

I think i'm gona have to start practicing with manual focus...