People will almost universally tell you that the body isn’t that important, that you should invest in better lenses, but I disagree. Better lenses are good, of course - but post processing has compensated a lot for the things that would make certain lenses important. On the other hand, you may very well miss shots because your body didn’t have enough physical controls on the body, or a cheap image stabilization system, or because the cheaper mirror and viewfinder made it impossible to manually focus. Or you miss some low light shots because your sensor tech is a generaton out of date.
I think it’s important to find a body that works for you, that fits you naturally, that seems intuitive to you, that’s capable, that will give you some room to grow - and then start picking up lenses from there.
What’s your price range? I don’t know how much cheaper than 3100 is than the 3200, but the 3200 actually has a remarkably good sensor for an entry level. I’m not a fan of current Canon sensor technology - the sony stuff (used by nikon/pentax/sony/some olympus) is much better. Pentax always has the best implementatons of those sensors (the sensors need supporting hardware - filters, microlenses, etc) but they’re a very small brand in the US.
The Pentax K5 is the best value there has ever been for a DSLR at about $750 (it’s still, IMO, and in the view of many others the best APS-C camera on the market - well, excluding the K5-II which is basically better AF for $300-400 more), but that’s probably out of your price range.
The main issue with DSLR equipment is diminishing returns. Good lenses are good to a point, but the amount you have to spend goes up faster than the amount of improvement in shots, same with cameras, same with software fixes.
Sensor development has slowed down a lot in recent years, and this years whiz bang camera may only be a tiny bit better than an older second hand camera.
Long range photography is one area where it gets tougher, and lenses are fairly important. Many 300mm lenses are really 200mm lenses in practise, with the 300mm end being soft to the point of near uselessness once you need to ‘crop’ (ie only use a smaller part of the entire picture) which is likely with some of the photography you’d do in these kinds of situations. For an example see here:
If you look at the entire picture its not too bad, but if you wanted only the people in it, it starts looking pretty ordinary once you only want them. And thats in good light, with a reasonably high shutter speed. Now if you’re going to be getting close to whatever you’re taking pictures of, less important as you wont need to crop or the like. But if not, this is one area where lenses will matter.
Yes, true. There’ll be plenty of time for that later, once you know you’ll use the features. But for now, may I suggest…
I respectfully disagree with those who said upthread to get a 50mm lens. I recommend getting two (and only two, to start) lenses, and both of them zooms:
(a) a slightly wide-angle zoom lens, about 18-55mm (or thereabouts), and
(b) a slightly telephoto zoom lens, about 28-300mm (or thereabouts)
With these two zoom lenses you will cover just about everything you’ll want to shoot. They will be easy to carry/transport without needing a large backpack for your camera gear, will minimize the number of times you’ll need to change lenses, and will be very versatile and flexible to meet many photo situations. One key about zoom lenses is that if you can’t move up to or back away from your subject to get the framing you want, the zoom will do that for you. Quickly and cleanly.
The 50mm is a standard lens, yes, but very limited in flexibility. In the end, it takes up space in your bag, is added weight, and becomes wasted (mostly) money. Once I got my two zoom lenses, I never used my 50. I no longer have one, and haven’t shot with one in years.
Also, bigger (“stronger”) lenses might seem impressive in the store, but you want gear you can easily take with you. It won’t help you if you’re tired of lugging the gear around and don’t have your camera with you. Size isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!
As for the f-stop changing as you zoom, you can control this by shooting in aperture-priority mode.
This is a great way to begin - the DSLR body with these two zoom lenses. You’ll have one lens mounted on your camera and the other lens in your bag. This setup will save you $$$ from not buying a bunch of lenses you won’t lug around and use, and will be plenty to not only get you started but sustain your photography needs for years to come. Later, as you gain experience and know what you enjoy shooting, you can buy the ultra-strong telephoto or ultra wide-angle fixed-length lenses, but these are specialty lenses and not commonly used (well, they are commonly used if you exclusively shoot in specialty situations). And, they are expensive. Don’t buy any until you know you’ll use them. Makes sense?
Oh, and take a basic photography class that covers composition, lighting, depth of field, portraiture and scenic landscapes, and action shots (blurred or not). That may sound like a lot but is usually covered in one or two basic classes. You can read a book on this, sure, but an interactive class will get you up to speed more quickly.
I recommend buying either Nikon or Canon. They are the best by far, and what’s most important is that they have the best lenses. Me, I shoot Canon.
Good luck and happy shooting, HazelNutCoffee! (Sorry this was so long!)
Interesting! Literally an hour ago I received a 1.8 50mm in the post for my new dSLR, so I thought I’d make a couple of comments in response.
The 18-55mm zoom lens that typically comes with entry level cameras is probably not the greatest lens in terms of sharpness and quality. It’s great to learn with but depending on what you are shooting its limitations can become frustrating quite quickly.
When I have my kit zoom at 55mm (which is ideal for portraits) it only goes to f5.6 which means for almost any indoor photography, especially parties or under softer lighting, you need an unflattering flash or an ISO so high that the pics are horribly noisy. Or you need a shutter speed too slow for hand-held shooting.
On safari it might be different - lots more natural light means f5.6 no longer becomes a limitation (although a prime lens will always be sharper).
The other piece to bear in mind that while 50mm is a “standard” focal length, that’s based on 35mm full-frame sensors. On a cropped sensor (I have a Canon 600d, and it’s common on most similar entry-level cameras) a 50mm lens is effectively an 80mm almost-telephoto lens; a 28mm lens is needed to get the “standard” focal length of 50mm.
From my very limited experience so far I’d say:
A basic 18-55mm zoom lens is great for most scenarios and is a brilliant way to learn SLR photography; with proper use it will also produce excellent photos and I think some people are far too quick to write them off. I’ve certainly not exploited mine to anywhere near it’s full potential.
For certain circumstances (e.g. indoor hand-held photos of people) being limited to f5.6 can be frustrating, and means you miss could shots that a faster lens would have captured (or you’re stuck using a flash or harsh overhead lighting).
A 50mm f1.8 lens costs less than £80 ($120) and weighs 130g so it won’t overload a camera bag and also won’t break the bank (especially as the re-sale value on eBay is pretty much the same).
I bought my camera principally to take pics of my children and I have noticed that my current lens zoomed to 55mm (which is what I’m using for 90% of pics) struggles at school plays or indoors during winter evenings, so for me a fast light-weight 50mm lens seems to make a lot of sense.
As I’ve only just got it I’ve not had a chance to take any pics yet, so I could change my mind entirely this evening!
All the advice in this thread is great. I don’t think there are many bad choices out there. To get wildlife photos on safari you’ll need at least 400mm equivalent IMO, so make sure you get enough lens to do the job.
But, better photos come from a combination of good gear, technique, and an artistic eye. A better camera won’t make your photos noticeably better until you learn how to take better photos. If you can, take a class, or give yourself an assignment to take photos every day, and read up about composing pictures and using light. Consider Understanding Exposure as a starting point.
And shoot, shoot, shoot. Take photos constantly, then take some more.
It’s cheap for a reason - all plastic and feels like a toy lens, but by all accounts the pictures it produces give much more expensive lenses a run for their money (especially on a cheaper camera like mine).
That’s technically true, but the lens will be prohibitively big to carry around unless taking pictures is your primary reason for going. In particular, a true 400 lens can be absolutely gigantic - see the lens on the bottom in this pic (ignore the gargantuan one). Think about it this way - the lens has a bracket for the tripod because it’s so heavy that it’ll throw off the whole balance and tip over otherwise. Carrying one of those things around and shooting from the hip comfortably is possible for about two minutes. On top of that, even renting one of those lenses is a couple hundred bucks for five or so days.
Haze - I’d say go with an entry level Nikon or Canon, honestly for your needs it probably won’t make a difference which one. I’d lean toward one that has auto ISO (since you’re shooting animals, you’ll want a fast shutter speed) and whichever feels comfortable in your hands. If you want to take far-off shots, look for a deal that includes both a kit lens and a 70-300mm lens, which is still pretty big but can fit in carry-on luggage relatively easy (I carted my old one to Europe in years past). It’s pretty common to find deals that include the longer lens along with the kit lens, which is usually an 18-55mm. The kit lens won’t be nearly enough zoom to take pictures of anything decently far away, though as others have side, it’ll be good for most stuff you’ll want to shoot.
Don’t worry about all the technical stuff, you’re not shooting for competition. Just enjoy it and take more pictures than you need because you can always delete the bad ones later.
Okay, 3 things. The prime is a good recommendation in general. The thing with lenses is that the more they try to do, the less good they are at it. Prime lenses are purpose built to do one thing - and hence are the best at what they do. They have the best image quality, the brightest aperture (how much light they gather), and are usually the lightest/smallest. Does that mean every prime beats every zoom in those categories? No, an excellent zoom may beat certain cheap primes in certain circumstances, but as a general rule. 50mm lenses are ubiquitous in photography and they’re easy to make, so every camera system has a very good and cheap 50mm. They’re a handy tool to have.
Second, having two zooms like that is affordable and a good idea, although the second zoom is almost certanly going to be in the 50-300 range rather than 28-300. In fact I’m not sure the major systems have lenses in those ranges. Something like 18-250 is not uncommon as an all-in-one lens that does everything, but again, the more a lens does the less good it is at it. Some of the 55-300 lenses are quite good and versatile here.
Third, those rangers are definitely not “slightly telephoto” or “slightly wide” - people will give you the focal length in terms of the equivelant field of view on a 35mm film camera so we’re all talking about the same thing regardless of camera system. Nikon/Pentax/Sony will have a 1.5x multiplier, meaning 18-55 is 27-82mm in 35mm equivelant. That goes from what would be considered fairly wide angle to short telephoto. 50-300 is 75-450, short telephoto to fairly long telephoto.
Having an 18-55 and 50-300 combo would cover most situations, adding a 50mm prime to that would a lot more situations (particularly low light). It’s a well rounded kit and I actually use something similar for 80% of my shooting although only because I haven’t been able to afford really nice primes yet (I use a 50mm from the 60s and a 28mm from the 70s - Pentax made great lenses back then, and their current digital cameras fully support every lens they ever made, unlike other manufacturers).
For a Safari, you’d possibly want to rent a 400mm prime or something like a sigma 50-500 bigma, or one of the 100-400 type lenses.
This is just flat out wrong. Canon and Nikon do own about 75% of the DSLR market. They are, by far, the most widely used choices. This means that you’ll have the widest range of accessories and lenses to choose from, any camera shop is going to know how to fix your camera, etc. But that’s momentum and marketing more than anything. They are not “by far” the best for a long shot, and they’re often not the best in a lot of price ranges.
Sony makes some awesome pieces of technology. Pentax beats Canon and Nikon at the same price point across the board. Olympus has the most widely celebrated new camera on the market this year. Fuji has some great niche cameras - granted, not really in the discussion for this one. Nikon and Canon dominate the market on $4000+ professional sports cameras, but they’re really the only players aside from a few Sony ventures.
Myself, I like Pentax. The K30, their mid-entry level, beats the T4i and Nikon 5100, their rough equivelants. K30 has better construction (weather sealed, steel), more enthusiast features (second dial, pentaprism rather than pentamirror for a brighter, clearer viewfinder, etc), better image quality although the 5100 is in the same ballpark, the canon equivelants are not. But better right now is the K5 - they’re clearing out old stock and what was a $1600 full blown semi-pro camera in 2011 is now an insane $750. It’s better than a $1500 Canon 7D in every way except autofocus on moving targets (Canon really is the best here) and movie mode - I’ve compared them extensively. It’s still the best APS-C DSLR aside from its refinement, the K5-II.
Now that may be more than what you’re looking for. If you just want something that’ll take good enough pictures, pretty much any DSLR will make you happy. If you think you may actually enjoy the photography and want to grow into it with more control over the camera, it’s worth looking up a tier. With the K5 in particular, you get a full semi-pro body with a entry level enthusiast price, but in general you can see where cameras go from basic entry level to starter enthusiast cameras around the price point where they start gaining a second control dial. I just won’t abide nonsense like “Canon and Nikon are by far the best”.
I’m sure the Pentax is a great camera, but you ultimately buy into a ecosystem if you go hardcore into these cameras. I second or third or whatever the recommendation to stick with a Canon or Nikon body. It ultimately is like buying say, a Palm Pre or Windows 8 Phone instead of the big boys Android or Iphone - hey, maybe they are great phones with great hardware, but can you get the same variety of apps, cases, training, etc with one ?
In terms of cameras, if you want to rent a lens, will they have it in non-Canon/Nikon ? If your friend has a camera, and you want to try each other’s lenses, what will they most likely have ? If you take a photography course, what kinds of cameras will they instruct to ? If you look at tutorials on the internet, what cameras will they show you how to use ?
The difference is not nearly that dramatic. Yes, I admit, it’s easier to get a camera serviced, rent lenses, find varied accessories with Canon/Nikon, that’s a point in their favor. But the idea that there aren’t enough lenses or stuff like that really isn’t a big factor. All camera makers have all of the basic lenses that 95% of people will ever use, and most of the others are expensive, niche lenses for professionals for specific purposes.
Some of those are valid, some not so much. There aren’t a lot of skills that photography classes that will teach you that you couldn’t apply to any camera. All of the basic stuff - composition exposure, lighting, etc. is not unique to particular cameras.
Top lenses sold doesn’t prove anything but market share, I don’t know why you think that tells anything better. Canon/Nikon have 75% of the DSLR market, so of course their lenses will top the best sellers.
As far as the number otherwise - what sort of lenses would a normal person commonly use that Nikon/Canon have, that Pentax/Sony/Olympus do not? Keep in mind that Tamron and Sigma make a lot of good lenses in all those mounts too.
Depends what you’re doing. With wildlife you will want reach, reach and more reach. I found 400mm FF equivalent to be a bare minimum and ultimately too limiting for my own taste ( and I’m a very amateur amateur ). Wildlife photography is a pain in the ass that way :).
Consumer reports released a blanket statement saying “Canon and Nikon cameras are all significantly better than all other cameras”? Bullshit. What was the context of their tests? What were they comparing?
Do you think that Consumer Reports would know more about cameras than somewhere like dpreview.com who specializes in in-depth camera reviews? Despite the Canon/Nikon bias you see even there, and despite that those makers release more models, their gold awards go away disproportionately towards non-Canon/Nikon brands.
Concerns about the number of accessories, lenses, ease of servicing, etc. maybe a valid concern, that comes with market share. But you won’t find a single person who knows what the hell they’re talking about who will say that Canon and Nikon are way ahead of their counterparts from other manufacturers, with the possible exception of $4000+ sports cameras, where they’re really the only game in town.
I’m generally a fan of Nikanon, but Consumer Reports has about the worst camera reviews I’ve ever read in my life. They know nothing about cameras, image quality, or how enthusiasts use cameras. Their camera reviews aren’t worth the pixels they use to print them.
HazelNut - I was in the exact same position as you a few years ago. We ended up buying a used Nikon D70 from adorama.com. If you’re not super-serious about photography, buying used is a good way to go. You’ll get a lot more bang for your buck, as a lot of serious users will be constantly upgrading and selling their older models that are still perfectly good. We got a package that sold for about $2000 new a year or two previously and paid something like $350 for it. We’ve been very happy with our purchase.
If you’re getting a typical prosumer type DSLR, you won’t have a full 35mm sized image sensor, and will probably have a crop factor in the neighborhood of 1.6x, which would make your 50mm f1.8 lens more like a 85-90mm lens.
In that case, what you want is about a 30mm lens for DSLRs, like the Sigma 30mm f1.4 HSM, which is available for pretty much all normal DSLR models, including the Four Thirds system stuff.
I’m a Canon guy, and have that lens, and use it 90% of the time, despite having a 28-135 zoom and a 50mm f1.8.
OH… probably most important of all, shoot RAW images and get a copy of Lightroom or DXO Optics or some sort of RAW file post processing software. That’ll make the biggest difference to your finished photos of all, since you can clean up white balance, vignetting, exposure, highlights, color saturation, etc… after you take the shot.
The sigma 30mm 1.4 is a quirky lens with a lot of unusual traits, not exactly a general-purpose lens I’d recommend to beginners. Significantly more expensive too. Nikon and Pentax have good 35mm lenses that are much better for general use - not sure about Canon. Cheap, too.
50mm on a crop sensor is a short telephoto rather than a normal, true, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful, just different. I do think you’re probably right that a 30-35mm prime as a general purpose lens would be more suitable.
…and that just about sums everything up. Figure out what features are important to you. Narrow down a range of cameras in your price range. Go down to the camera shop and feel each of them in your hand. Buy the one that feels right at the price you can afford with the feature set that you desire. I’ve got a friend who swears by his Fuji DSLR. My mate shoots Nikon. Wellington’s best street photographer shoots Pentax. I shoot Canon. There really really REALLY isn’t a wrong choice here. I live in NZ where importing camera gear can be a pain in the butt: but that hasn’t stopped thousands of photographers producing wonderful images with all sorts of different brands of camera. (I would only advise to maybe stay away from Olympus because of their recent financial troubles.)
My advice would be not to overthink things! You are a year away from travelling: find a camera you love, look for a dual-kit-lens version of the camera, buy it, and start shooting. Learn your camera, learn the basics of exposure, learn to manage the focus points, then start pushing your camera and the lenses to their limits. As you start to find out what you like to shoot and how you like to shoot it you will soon figure out which lenses you want to upgrade to.
Better glass will always help. But learn the basics first. ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, Focus Points, your basic camera controls. Read this primer. Start shooting in RAW. Use the editing software that comes with your camera. Screw up. Make mistakes. Learn from those mistakes. Always look to improve. And most importantly of all, IMHO, is shoot what you love.
