My wife is looking at getting a decent digital camera rather than our Kodak easy share point & click thingy.

We currently have a budget of £150 give or take, she is looking for advice/owners recommendations for a suitable 'Bridge' camera that will allow her to eventually get a DSLR type if she finds she really enjoys proper photography, Unless there is a DSLR that we could pick up second hand that would be within our budget ?

I had a few SLR's in the 80's/90's but ive not been into this sort of thing for years so we are looking for some advice please.

We cant really go much higher than the above mentioned budget because if we do, it'll come out of my kitcar fund

Cheers Andy & Emily

Ask yourself/her why you want an SLR....

I have a Canon 400D slr, and yes, it takes some fantastic images when you take the time to frame the shot properly, get the exposure right etc... but its a ballache because you need the camera (which itself is hefty) plus a bag of lenses so you can be sure to capture anything you come across... I have 3 lenses at the moment with a combined value of about £1000... and they can be considered budget lenses... Because of the weight/bulkyness of the SLR I dont use it unless I know in advance that carrying it will pay off.

I have a little compact (panasonic FT2) that fits in my pocket, OK, so the quality of the pics is not as good as the 400D, BUT, you can take it with you everywhere! (plus the FT2 works underwater)...


Panasonic do some really really good pocket sized point and shoot digi cams which I am fairly sure would now compete photo quality wise with my 400D, plus the fact that some now come with pretty wide lenses (about 20mm) and some stonking telephonto (around 300m) plus all in between without ever having to change lens...

She knows she can get a pocket type camera, we have one already, she really wants to get into photography & does actually want to spend time framing/setting upshots & experimenting etc.

Im all up for this, i have my kitcar build to keep me amused, i think it would be a great thing for her to really get into.

I had a Kodak Z650 easysare, 10 x optical zoom, took realy good pictures upgraded to a DSLR sony A200 for one reason only that was for continuos shooting 3fps the Kodak only gave me 3 frames then I had to wait for the processing.

Advice would be go for a decent optical zoom 3x is way to small unless your doing more close up, try to get one wit manual settings as this allows a greater degree of control and more alligned to the DSLRS.

You could pick up an entry level DSLR for around the £150 mark something older like the sony A100 . I have purcahse 3 lenses secondhand from ebay including one for close up work and a couple of Telephoto lensed dearest one being £60.

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Originally posted by tegwin
Ask yourself/her why you want an SLR....

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Yes, we are open to buying 2nd hand.

Any advice is good, if she can get a 2nd hand one that will out perform a new budget one then thats fine with her

Take a look at the Lumix TZ7....bit point and shooty but you can get some v. good results...

My DSLR with bag lens charger, tripod and memory card was around £200 second hand so yes they can be had. At least a second hand DSLR will allow her to start getting into it a little more seriously using manual and RAW settings giving her greater control over the pictures she takes.

All my track picture have been taken using a sony A200 with second hand lenses. I have also taken a lot of wedding and portraits with it and no regrets

my mum just got a canon sx130ix. seems a good sort of 'in between' camera. its a very good camera on its own right anyway, don't know about prices, can't seem to find much about it, not sure how long its been out. worth investigating i reckon

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Originally posted by Andybarbet
Yes, we are open to buying 2nd hand.

Any advice is good, if she can get a 2nd hand one that will out perform a new budget one then thats fine with her

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She also needs to think what she's going to use it for. My wife had a Nikon compact, but as most of her photos were of our children and many of those were action shots, it was useless - the shutter lag was so great that she missed the moment with almost every shot of them. We replaced it with a Sony, bought mainly on the strength of the short lag. To be honest, we use my Canon 350D for almost everything.

Just as an aside, does anyone remember the make of camera that was introduced a few years ago that continually took photos, keeping 7 every time you pressed the button, the one at the moment of pressing, three before and three after? That sounded like a good idea for action photos.

Don't buy an Olympus ---- having had several Olympus conventional cameras i was expecting great things when I bought an Olympus digital to replace my Sanyo point and click job , the spec look great but it was was awful to use, the menus were very confusing, a lot of shutter delay and the pictures were muddy.
I kept it for 6 months before buying another Sanyo.


Don't dismiss compact size digital cameras some of them have very good lenses and sensors apart from the big names also look at Fuji & Sanjo

quote:

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Originally posted by Andybarbet
My wife is looking at getting a decent digital camera rather than our Kodak easy share point & click thingy.

We currently have a budget of £150 give or take, she is looking for advice/owners recommendations for a suitable 'Bridge' camera that will allow her to eventually get a DSLR type if she finds she really enjoys proper photography, Unless there is a DSLR that we could pick up second hand that would be within our budget ?

I had a few SLR's in the 80's/90's but ive not been into this sort of thing for years so we are looking for some advice please.

We cant really go much higher than the above mentioned budget because if we do, it'll come out of my kitcar fund

Cheers Andy & Emily

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How about : Nikon d70s body now available for about £100 with batteries and charger and to start with a 18-70 g lens available for less than £50.

This is an older model but still gives all the flexibility you would need ( full auto or manual control over everthing ) the lens is one of the most usefull. Its the one lens that remains bolted to the front of my camera virtually all the time.

If she decides that dslr is the way to go, sell the body and keep the lens and upgrade to a newer version.

Roger

Quote.

Unless there is a DSLR that we could pick up second hand that would be within our budget ?

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I used to be into SLR's back in the film days (Minolta stuff) but time and technology moves on.

I too now use (most of the time) a Kodak EasyShare CX7530. A cracking little camera that I payed £25 s/h,
but I've always wanted to get back to an SLR.

Not being flush with cash I bought a Samsung GX10 s/h. A shade under £200. (Pic below)
OK, so its not a "Caterham" of the camera world but it does the job.

Worth a thought perhaps?

Cheers,
Paul G


Samsung GX10 dslr

By strange co-incidence I'm just about to put my D70 and 18-70 lens/battery/charger on ebay. U2U me if the spec looks good to you.
Regards
Hugh

I would save up a bit more if she's seriously interested into getting into photography, even for second hand kit. you're gonna have to spend more than that to get a bridge camera with more features on than a decent compact camera like the Panasonic.

And I'm not sure if a second hand bridge camera would give you a real taste of a decent SLR with some proper lenses, they are so different.

I don't think you need to save more. You can have the D70 kit i'm flogging (body/lens/battery/charger) for £130 inc p+p, cos thats what I just paid to upgrade to a used D80 body (I have other lenses to use with it). The D70's 'only' 6.1mpixels which doesn't sound much these days(but will print to A3 quite easily), but you'll learn everything you need to about photography from it.

ETA: At that price, you should get your money back by flogging it on the bay if its not for you.
Its probably a good idea to get a good book, or look on some sites like www.kenrockwell.com or www.luminous-landscape.com for ideas of the sorts of things you can do with different types of cameras, what sort of kits available etc.

Regards
Hugh

[Edited on 16/5/11 by hughpinder]

Canon G7/G9/G11... Amazing cameracs. Crystal images, and virtually the same software as the SLRS, so plenty of setting for her to play with to see if she likes it. MY mrs has a G9, and loves it. I bought a G9 at my last company, and aG11 at m,y present company, and everyone loves them. The mrs is just making the jump from the G9, so a Cannon 550D - and she can use it straight out of the box as the G9 acts a such a strong bridge!

Thanks for all the replys, wife is digesting them as i type & is going to spend the evening doing some research.

As always, locostbuilders comes back with an array of experience & answers,

Cheers Andy & Emily

fuji do a great range of bridge cameras and they are not too expensive. I have been impressed by all the ones that I have played with,..

s2800hd

Fujifilm FinePix S2800HD Digital Camera Bundle | eBay UK

hth

The Fuji bridge cameras aren't bad (I've had a couple), but typically they have small sensors and fairly slow lenses which limits their usefulness. I was going to suggest looking for a s/h Samsung GX10/Pentax K10D but it's already been mentioned.

Personally I snap up Hugh's offer of the D70, I doubt you will get anything better for the money and you then have a proper DSLR to learn with.

[Edited on 17/5/11 by MikeRJ]