FedEx says I’m supposed to receive it today, so I’ll be able to share my thoughts and pics soon. My first vict… uh, SUBJECTS will be the cats, naturally. I really enjoyed your kitty pics!
Thanks…
I’m not sure how the 520 will work, but we’ve found the 620 to be pretty good at a wide range of light situations, although obviously you can see that it doesn’t eliminate the red/green eye problems inherent to flash photography. I’d be most interested in hearing how it handles light issues and less-than-steady operators.
Look forward to qat pix, too…
I got the camera yesterday, as FedEx promised and played around with it… Here are some of the first pics I took. As you can see, I have a lot to learn. But considering that all I did was install the batteries & memory card and start shooting, they came out fairly decent.
That’s our living room. With my cheapo webcam, I could NEVER get photos worthy of sharing in that room, even with morning sunlight. I tried moving our lamps around to provide more lighting, but the cats always came out looking like black blobs. With the flash, they looked like aliens.
I’m confident that my results will only improve as I learn how to use different settings, etc. Overall, I’m quite happy with the camera on first usage. The only thing that perplexes me right now is how few images the memory card will hold at a time.
When I bought my digital (a Canon EOS 350D SLR), I also bought a 256 MB memory card to go with it. I realised very quickly that I wildly underestimated the number of pictures I’d be taking on a day’s shooting, and 256 MB just wasn’t going to cut it.
With the A620, I’d recommend a 512MB card as the sweet spot; enough to hold a decent number of pics, not expensive enough to make you do a double-take on the price. Happy shooting!
Ah, yes, the peripherals! We forgot to mention that. The memory chip that comes in the box with every digicam is a joke, capacity-wise. Upgrade is mandatory.
Kitchen Wench, your camera (A520) at high resolution creates files averaging 2MB, some much larger. On a 512MB SD card you should be good for over 220 shots, and well over twice that at “medium/normal” rez; whether you’re better off with a 512 or a 256 and whether you’ll want a “backup” card, is up to your desire to take lots of pics, memory-housekeeping patterns and budget. I manage with a 128 and a 64 for my old A70, but it creates smaller files to begin with and I do frequent flushes.
Another necessary peripheral: battery recharger and at least four good rechargeable AA batteries (rated 2000 mAh or greater): two in the camera, two at the ready. Digicams eat batteries specially if you use the viewscreen. Better to buy the charger and the cells separately if possible, the “bundles” usually cheap out on one or the other. With the Canon A you can always pop in old-fashioned AA alkalines in a pinch.
I’m looking at buying my first digital SLR, I am in college about to start my study of photojournalism. I was considering the Nikon D50 because they sell it at Best Buy and a friend of mine works there and get a discount for me. But since I don’t know what much of the technical jargon means yet, I’m not sure how quality of a camera it is. I just want a quality SLR that I can learn with…anyone have any experience with this camera or can understand the jargon and let me know your thoughts?
One place to start would be reading reviews; www.dpreview.com has a wide selection, and they review the D50 here (it gets a Highly Recommended rating, the highest available): http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond50/
The general consensus seems to be that any current DSLR is a pretty good buy; it all depends on your preferences, and whether you have a previous investment in lenses by that manufacturer. I had an old Canon film SLR, so it was logical for me to invest in a Canon-mount DSLR. For someone starting out, the D50 looks like a very good camera at a pretty affordable price. I would recommend, however, that you go and play around with the cameras a little, to get a feel of the weight and balance; the ergonomics are more and more becoming the deciding factor between cameras with otherwise similar specifications.
One catch with Nikon is that the software they give you with the camera is only a limited-time trial version; if you want to continue using the software, you have to shell out $100 more, I think. Canon’s software is included in the price of the camera.
Re: Accessories; this becomes a MUCH bigger issue with a DLSR than with a point-and-shoot; you’re suddenly looking at lenses, flashes, bags, memory cards, tripods, filters… everything under the sun. You will definitely need to budget for a memory card (512MB or 1GB), and while the kit lens is a great place to start (I bought my Canon with the kit lens) you’ll rapidly realise that there are limitations to its abilities, and start looking elsewhere. I would suggest you begin with the kit lens, allow yourself some time to see what you can do and can’t do with that, and then look at other lenses.
The jargon is a little frightening to begin with, but a little Googling will help you sort most of it out; many photography sites (including dpreview) have a glossary and often tutorials to help you understand the basics of the terminology.
I’ve come to the conclusion that photography is a hobby that you can endlessly sink money into, unless you’re very strict about your spending limits.
Yup, I think that’s about the end of my spiel - for the moment. 
Thanks for the tip, JR. At the moment, I’ve got roughly 16 regular AAs in the junk drawer, so the rechargeables will have to wait a while. I just spent 150 bucks on a new toy (and didn’t realize I’d have to spend another 40 on a memory card), and I’m sorta spreading my “play money” around a bit. My plan is to do more serious picture taking if it ever snows again-- I want to capture that winter bridge, see?
As it is, I’ll keep using the (cough) 16MB SD card for messing around the house. Practice with different settings, you know? It’s unfortunate that the only real interesting (and willing) subjects available are the cats. And even they get bored with me bothering them with my new toy.
Hey, while I’ve got you all here, can you recommend a website that serves as a tutorial on technique in different situations? Possibly something that will show the difference in aperture and shutter speed, etc. My friend can tell me about this stuff, but I’d like to see the difference. Am I asking for too much? 
I currently shoot with a D50 and can’t recommend it highly enough. Picture quality is superb (with the best low-light performance I’ve seen for a DSLR) with a build quality that feels nice and solid while fitting comfortably in my hands (the Canon Rebel XT has a cheaper, plasticky feel and is much too small for me). Also, the interface design (both buttons and digital menus) are very well thought out. I have a few niggling complaints about the lack of a backlit LCD status screen and I’d really wish I could set bracketing without going through the menus but these are very minor complaints compared to the overall quality.
One caveat: I was never very happy with the 18-55mm kit lens. I found the images to be soft and experienced purple-fringing in high-contrast situations. Consider upgading to the 18-70mm lens. That’s the D70 kit lens and I find it produces much sharper images.
RE: Red or Green-Eye
Since a few people mentioned this, I thought I’d comment. Red-eye (Green eye for many animals) is a problem inherent in any camera where the flash is located close to the axis of the lens. Unfortunately, that pretty much covers the entire consumer point and shoot market.
One solution to the problem is to use the red-eye flash setting that most of these cameras have. It works by flashing 2 or 3 times instead of just once. The first one or two flashes force the irises to contract and only the final flash is used to actually take the picture. This is a less than ideal solution because human subjects usually think the photo’s already been taken after the first flash and will therefore sometimes be caught moving or looking away by the time the actual photo is taken. And, of course, animals might be spooked by the first flash and be unlikely to stick around for the final one.
There are a couple of other, more effective strategies for dealing with this problem. For instance, I’ve had some success with taping tissue paper over the flash. This will diffuse the light, creating softer shadows and greatly reducing the chances of red-eye. The disadvantage of this technique is that it will shorten the range of your flash so you’ll have to compensate by getting closer to your subject.
The other method is to re-direct or bounce the light. I’ve sometimes used a small mirror or silver lens cap held at an angle underneath the flash to bounce the light towards the ceiling which will then reflect down upon your subjects. Again, this will soften the light, produce more natural-looking shadows and eliminate the possibility of red-eye. Again, the disadvantage is that flash range is reduced and is completely useless outside or in places with high ceilings.
::scribbles notes furiously::
Thanks, Hodge. Any other tips?
Try checking out some of these online photography sites:
The above linked DPReview has an excellent Photographic Glossary
10 free lessons in photography. Very informative.
Luminous Landscape has some great technical essays and tutorials.
Flickr is a very popular online photo-sharing community. Most of the members are enthusiastic amateurs and there are all sorts of discussion groups including Technique to discuss, well, technique, or CAFE and Critique for Starters to solicit constructive criticism for your work.
Ooh, thanks for the list! I was just checking out Luminous Landscape. I think I’ll probably stop by Flickr next.
Again, many thanks.
Hodge, I want to thank you especially for this link. This is the info I’ve been looking for.