Equipment Should I buy a decent camera?

I certainly don't think I need manual control at the moment, but I like the idea of being able to have it, for all I know I may get into photography more heavily once I start playing around.

I am budget constrained sadly, I'd be looking at less than £300 if possible, although, if something a little more was worth it, I could be tempted.

I think I'm going to put up a Wanted thread here, just incase any of the camera enthusiasts are considering upgrading

mucgoo, that looks like the kinda thing Lenny was recommending, and the price doesn't seem too bad either!

Edit:
Had a quick look for 2nd hand cameras, and found a 400D with 18-55mm lens, boxed, 6 months warranty, in a town local to where I live. To me, that sounds a far better buy than the Fuji?

 

I've never been a fan of the Rebel cameras... and not because of image quality. Rather build quality and ergonomics. Generally speaking if you have larger hands you will get a bit annoyed with the Rebel series, particularly since the right hand grip is rather short and you'll find that your fingers are tightly wound around the grip and sticking out a bit- this is fine for short duration and with the kit 18-55mm lens. But if you put a larger (wider/fatter) lens on, and as a result make the camera very front heavy the combination with your fingers being in an awkward position make it a poor choice for me. I'm also not a fan of the fact that every general of Rebel has creeped towards ever thinned plastic.

I would opt for a Nikon D3100 in the entry level range. The grip is also rather small, but it's more rounded allowing more of your palm and fingers to rest/wrap along the front of the camera body. It still isn't ideal (I love big chunky grips)- but an improvement over the Rebel. Although there is fairly universal acceptance that Nikon's dSLR interface is more user friendly than Canon- particularly the D-Lighting feature and the D3100's built in "Step by Step Manual" which asks you a short series of questions about what you want to shoot and then adjusts itself.

Unfortunately warranties seem to be handled differently in Europe. A friend of mine who shoots Nikon in France, said that his camera body came with a 1 year warranty, and his lenses are warrantied for 1 year. In Canada the bodies are warrantied for 2 years, and all lenses are 5 years standard. I ended up buying him lenses in Canada and bringing them over as Nikon puts two warranty cards in their camera/lenses for Canada: One Year Global Warranty voucher, and a Five Year Canada voucher. I can always take the lens back to Canada for him after the first year for repairs. Having dealt extensively with damaged Nikon lenses and bodies- Nikon Canada rarely charges the end user for repairs unless the damage is extremely extensive.

As an alternative to the Fuji, I would rather opt for the Panasonic Lumix FZ-45. Same price range, but reliability wise Panasonic performs better than Fuji in the compact/point and shoot range of cameras.

 

Ok, I'll see if I can find anyone I know with one so I can see how it feels.

I've been looking at the London Camera Exchange for 2nd hand cameras, anywhere else I should look?

Warranty wise I'm not too worried, since having spoken to people, they say the build quality is very good, and they don't tend to break if treated well.

I'll have a look at the panasonic, if I'm not going for a DSLR, then I would rather spend less if possible.

I mean, I partially thinking either go all out (within budget) or just get a cheapy point and shoot if I'm not going to bother.

 

Here is a good start, I've used them before and had very good service. Talk Photography is the main forum where people tend to sell their gear, however their policy is similar to bit-tech's in that you need to be registered for one month and have made 20 posts IIRC.

 

Thanks, I'll have a looksie on there aswell.

Is there a site where you can see how cameras compare to each other in theory? (as in, just a basic chart showing how 'good' each are compared to one another, so you can see camera x from nikon is better than camera y from canon in theory) ?

 

One camera isn't necesarily "better" than another; they all just have diferent features and different build qualities.

At a foundational level, the discerning factor is the size of the sensor; so with that in mind, pretty much all APS-C digital SLRs will produce simlar image quality and all full frame cameras will produce similar image qualities etc. As much as I loved my bridge camera, it just wasn't a patch on a dSLR in terms of IQ so I couldn't use it for work.

 

I know, hence why I put better in inverted commas.
Since presumably the top end nikon is a 'better' camera than their bottom model DSLR, and I'd like to have a list of how different models compare, especially to other companies models, rather than having to google a model number every other link :/

 

This is quite handy if you just want to quickly compare specs of different cameras.

 

That's pretty much exactly the kinda thing I'm looking for!
Although would be great if you could compare more than 2 at a time.

 

if etc includes 100 facebook pictures of you in costa coffee, i will call you an annoying girls name forever after

 

In that case:

http://www.dpreview.com/products/compare/cameras

 

Right, am borrowing my friends 450D for a bit, this is the first image I've taken that I spent any time on (couple of minutes to take the photo, with a couple of retakes, then a friend showed me a couple of things in photoshop, I've included both images)

Now, is that kinda photo easily done using a point and shoot? As I said, this is my first time using a DSLR, and I didn't spend a great deal of time on it. I'm not claiming it to be fantastic or whatnot, I genuinely don't know.

Original:


Played around with for a bit:

 

It depends what you mean by 'that kind of photo'. What aspect of that photo is it you would want to reproduce with a compact?

In terms of ability to focus close etc. then it depends on the lens you are using with the DSLR...some have very close minimum focus distances, others quite long which means they're not good for close up/macro shots. Most compacts are able to focus reasonably close in my experience. In terms of focus speed etc, again this is somewhat dependent on the lens but in general focus speed should be quicker with a DSLR and they have much greater ability for accurate focusing due to being able to use selectable focus points and much greater ease of manual focusing. Compacts can sometimes be a real pain to focus accurately in certain situations like macro photography, and you may find yourself wanting to be able to focus manually for those sort of things.

On the other hand...the main difference between a compact and DSLR in terms of how the image will look will be the depth of field. DSLRs have much larger sensors which enables them to have a much shallower DOF, enabling you to blur the background/foreground (like in that shot) if that's the kind of effect you're after. It does have its downsides though, such as when you're shooting at a large aperture the depth of field may be shallower than you would like, but in general it is seen as an advantage of DSLRs to be able to produce shallow depth of field shots to isolate subjects.

 

Haha, I must admit, I'm not entirely sure what about that image I was referring to specifically

The DOF thing is something I quite like, along with the macro stuff, I mean, I don't think I could get much closer with the kit lens that I'm using.

That was taken last night under my bedroom light, which wasn't great, and so I've already started seeing the benefits of being able to change the shutter speed (I don't know if you can do that on compacts), and the colour balance settings. Have yet to play around with ISO and aperture stuffs.

Also any recommendations on SD cards?
Play are having a sale today and I think I might pick one up.
Currently looking at either: http://www.play.com/Electronics/Ele...anDisk-16GB-SDHC-SD-Memory-Card/Product.html?
Or: http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/4949676/-/Product.html

Is it worth going for a faster card?

 

You only really need fast memory cards for continuous shooting or for movies, but if it's cheap anyways why not get it? £8 for an 8GB Sandisk Extreme is very good...

Regarding your photo and what you can do with a point-and-shoot, the main difference IMO is the dSLR's ability to shoot in RAW, which allows you to adjust the exposure after taking the shot, something you can't do with a JPEG file which is how most (if not all) compacts save images. I know you're not looking for a photo critique but your image is a tad under-exposed, and that would be very easy to sort if it was a RAW file simply by bumping the exposure up by a quarter or half a stop, or adding some fill light.

If you haven't already, try working with the camera in RAW and experiment with the settings in post processing. You really need to use RAW to fully benefit from the functionality of a dSLR.

Many compacts have a manual mode which allows you to change the shutter speed, ISO and aperture; the only difference between a compact and a dSLR in that regard is that the dSLR will have far better image quality with a high ISO speed, and (depending on the lens) can have a much smaller f-number (bigger aperture). My favourite lens is my 50mm f/1.4, but I rarely use it at f/1.4 because the DOF is just too shallow.

 

Yeah, went ahead and got the 8gb card.
That was shot in RAW, as I said, was taken probably around midnight last night, with poor lighting, shutter speed was something like 1/10, since at 1/60 (think what it was only previously) it was rather gloomy. And I don't mind critique, as I said, first time user, so always happy to learn

Still got to get my head fully around the affect of smaller aperture numbers, and shallow/deep depth of field

 

There's actually plenty of compacts which allow you to shoot in RAW (most of the higher end ones do), here's a roundup of some of them:

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/4333175133/buyers-guide-enthusiast-raw-shooting-compact-cameras

That said, even though it shoots RAW files the image quality still won't match that of a DSLR, it just allows you to do more with your photos in post processing than a JPEG.

 

Yeah that was where I was going with it - it's the combination of RAW and the bigger sensor that really sets dSLRs apart from compacts.

I must admit I thought only bridge cameras had RAW functionality. New thing every day and all that lol.

 

While all of those cameras looks rather nice, I can't bring myself to spend £300+ on a camera for a non DSLR :/

Will be having more a play tomorrow during the day hopefully

 

George for £300 you would be better off looking at a used dSLR which will give you the option to go Auto or manual when you know what you want to do .
£300 should buy you a Canon450d and kit lens or a nikon 3000 or 5000 with kit lens.
These are far superior to any bridge camera and have the option to upgrade lenses- they'll also be easier to sell if you decide Photography isnt for you.
Another good choice is a panaonic G1 with kit lens - much smaller than a standard DSLR