Buying Digital SLR: Tips Please

[Kana-Baba]

what is prime lens and what is special about them over generic one, why i keep hearing about them in different forums?

[Kana-Baba]

btw, i had one minolta film slr

[Puck]

Originally Posted by Kana-Baba
well, I will eventually buy both 18-50 and 50-200 lenses. ... so please provide me options for both categories.

may i suggest that you just buy one lens for the moment. are you sure it is a 18-50 and not an 18-55? perhaps i have made a mistake.

that above lens should be a good enough starter lens. hang onto your money for the moment with regards to buying a second lens. you might be able to pick up three or four much cheaper and older lenses from ebay later for the money you'd pay for a new lens. since you are in the states, you have a lot of secondhand lenses available to you via the net and old camera shops.

[Puck]

Originally Posted by Kana-Baba
what is prime lens and what is special about them over generic one, why i keep hearing about them in different forums?

well, a prime lens is a fixed lens. it would have a fixed focal length. say for instance 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm etc. a zoom lens would have a varying focal length like your 18-55.

i am not entirely sure why the prime lenses are better but they just are! i presume that it is to do with less movement inside the lens and factors as such. it isn't that zoom lenses are not good enough but pound for pound you'd have to spend a lot of money to get as good a zoom as it would cost you to get a prime.

i personally only use primes in both rangefinder and slr photography.

[Puck]

Originally Posted by Kana-Baba
btw, i had one minolta film slr

minolta made a lot of excellent bodies and some very fine glass. i had a minolta cle for a while, exactly the same version as a leica cle and it was a joy to use. the lenses were so wonderfully sharp. loved the 40mm f2

[Kana-Baba]

Originally Posted by Puck
may i suggest that you just buy one lens for the moment. are you sure it is a 18-50 and not an 18-55? perhaps i have made a mistake.

that above lens should be a good enough starter lens. hang onto your money for the moment with regards to buying a second lens. you might be able to pick up three or four much cheaper and older lenses from ebay later for the money you'd pay for a new lens. since you are in the states, you have a lot of secondhand lenses available to you via the net and old camera shops.

it's 18-55mm ... iguess i was wrong.

are secondhand lenses good enough? quality-wise...what is the effect of aging?

[Puck]

Originally Posted by Kana-Baba
it's 18-55mm ... iguess i was wrong.

are secondhand lenses good enough? quality-wise...what is the effect of aging?

older primes would sill be top notch lenses in older slr cameras as long as fungus or general scratching hasn't taken over. good quality older primes on old slr cameras would still give you quite a bit better quality pictures in terms of contrast, sharpness and lattitude to blow up the pictures later. best of all, a lot of these (other than leica branded ones!) are much cheaper now.

portrait lense for my om4 and om1 slr cameras is the olympus zuiko 100m f/2.8. i paid 65 uk pounds for this. this particular lens still holds it value somewhat and would go for up to 100 uk pounds. back in the eighties and early nineties this lens would have cost at least five times that in monetary value of those days. that would certainly have kept it out of my budget. the fastest prime i possess for the olympus om slr is a 50m f/1.4. i had paid around 40 uk pounds for it. the equivalent length in dslr terms would be 30m. the sigma 30m f/1.4 lens is known to be an excellent performer and would cost 250 uk pounds. the olympus zuiko 30m f/1.4 is around 500 uk pounds.

your question was how these older primes would perform in a dslr camera. the main problem is that they would be manual. so you have to set the aperture, you have to focus manually and you have to do evaluative light metering. a very good manual prime should still beat your 18-55m lens in terms of contrast and sharpness. however, its the price which makes them really good options. get them from ebay and if they don't fit your need just sell them on.

[Puck]

recently, a request was made by reverse_swing to post my assessment of superzoom digital cameras, in particular - Panasonic DMC-FZ50,Canon PowerShot S3 or Olympus SP-550

Panasonic DMC-FZ50


Canon PowerShot S3


Olympus SP-550



what is a superzoom camera?

a superzoom camera like the above are usually, larger than most of the compact cameras. they cost a little more and most of them have full manual controls. with the exception of canon RAW capture mode is standard in this class of camera. the optical zoom would allow one to get very close to the action whether you are interested in sports photography, isolating detail on a landscape or nature photography. with added image stabilisation, zooms of this range reduces camera shake. a handful of reviewers noted a very slight loss of sharpness around the edges.

[Puck]

who and why buy a superzoom camera?

if you are only taking family pictures inside the house or on days out, a superzoom camera is a little overkill. most compact digital cameras by the traditional, canon, nikon, olympus, fuji, kodak and pentax would come with at least 3x optical zoom. this is quite sufficient for family portrait needs.

the superzoom would a camera for the photograhy enthusiast. it gives you a range of creative options and full manual control. so if you really enjoy photography as a hobby or that you like to combine your photographic interest with other interests such as birdwatching, field sports or spying on the neighbour, these cameras would be the ideal accompaniment for such ocassion. they also have a viewfinder like slrs that allow you to compose your picture even in very bright conditions.

why the manual controls? photography, at its very basic form is the capture of light on a photosensitive medium. how you capture the rays of light is reflected in the final result. for those of you used to old film cameras, you might have had a few pictures that turned out too bright or too dark. with the advent of the digital camera we can delete the poorly lit images or exceptionally bright ones from the camera memory. flash can be used during the day or at night to illuminate the subject to an extent. however, flash photography is very complicated and most professional portrait photographers prefer to have a more natural look to the skintone which flashes would simply wash out. manual control allows you to take acceptable pictures in very bright light or in very low light. manual control would also allow you to freeze motion of water or give a more flowing effect.

the picture below shows an almost dreamy sunset. the colours are so vibrant and alive. this picture would have been taken in RAW format with a wide angle lens. RAW allows you to capture a subject, transfer it to your computer or laptop later for the editing of white balance, sharpness, contrast, colour curves and many other factors. an image like this did not come out of camera like you see it, this has been post processed. a camera with manual control would allow you the facility to turn out images like this.


in the picture below the water has a flowing quality about it. this has been achieved by using a slow shutter speed. it would be almost impossible to recreate such a shot with a compact camera, however, a camera with manual or aperture priority allows you to control the amount of light that you allow into the camera lens. that is what creates this softness in the water.


perhaps an even more dramatic rendition of slow or long shutter speed can be seen in the stream below. at a guess, this picture would have been taken with a 30 seconds long shutter speed. this can only be achieved through manual contols within the camera.

[Puck]

most cameras with full manual control would allow you to take pictures like above, not just a superzoom. however, the superzoom allows you to get this close -


you would also need a fast shutter speed in this instance as the egret would hardly have stood still. most compact cameras without full manual control would also probably come with two settings. one of these would the picture of a runner and the other setting being a very slow shutter speed. the camera is proprogrammed already for you to use these modes. however, the camera would not allow you to vary the speeds at all. here is where your full manual controls comes in very handy and delivers that pin sharp image.


image stabilisation is crucial if you have a camera with a huge zoom. if you are focusing on a subject 500 meters away, a very slight shake on your body would blur the image completely. stabilisation is achieved through using a very strong flash (impossible in long distance photography) or by increasing the shutter speed. in the image below a very high shutter speed has frozen the horse and the rider in time so a relatively sharp image can be obtained.

[Puck]

lastly, how does one choose between the three cameras as mentioned above?

a common problem with all these cameras would be their slightly slower start up time and slow focusing. this is simply because they have a very long lens and the camera has to test the motor and the lens when you first switch on.

in terms of the sharpness of lens, nothing would beat the panasonic. it features a leica made lens. leica had always made the very best lenses for cameras since its existence, period! the panasonic is also the biggest of the cameras (although not that big compared to the canon. however, the panasonic has received very poor reviews in how it deals with low light situations. all these cameras would allow you to increase or decrease the iso speed. so in very bright condition you might like to reduce the iso to 100 or even lower on a slr. this would give you the most vibrant colours, the best detail and almost no grain or picture noise. the shot below shows picture noise on the sky -


the panasonic suffers from picture noise at any speed from iso400. this can be unacceptable if you like to take your pictures in low light. however, the picture noise is nowhere near as much of a problem as some reviewers had mentioned, if you were to record your images in RAW format. it is only jpeg and its compressed file format that seem to affect the noise quite wildly. in good light, at lower iso speeds or if you use a flash, there would not be any noise issues in your snaps. the 10 mega pixel capture ability would mean you could take a full size picture and then crop it to your hearts desire. however, it does mean that file writing time can be a little slow compared to the others if you are capturing at 10MP. the manual mode also gives you greater variation in shutter speed and aperture than the other cameras.

the canon is a lovely camera with 6MP. the lense is quite sharp and it accepts AA sized batteries as well. the canon dials are always really well laid out. iso performance is a bit better than the panasonic, however, this is not the camera for the serious photographer because it only records images in jpeg format. of course, you can maniplulate jpeg files on your computer but jpeg is a very inferior file format for a serious camera. the aperture will go upto a maximum of f/8 which might also be a limiting factor for many buyers. to put it simply, it basically offers less of the creative ability compared to the other two makes. the new version of this camera, the S5 also lacks RAW capture facility.

the olympus is something of a freak of a camera on paper. it caused huge excitement when it first came out as it is the most feature packed camera in the world and chances are that rivals of olympus would never bother adding a lot of the features you'd find in this camera! this is a smaller camera than the other two and it supports RAW mode. please do note that the 18x zoom is actually a little bit of a misnomer since it starts out from a wide angle 28m rather than the 50m of most other cameras. so the zoom is more around 14x compared to the panasonic and canon. however, the wide angle 28m gives it much more of a edge as grand landscape pictures are usually taken at 28m or below. it offers an iso range of 50-5000, which is actually totally unheard of on a camera this class. however, please do note that iso 5000 is achieved by a technique called pixel shedding. which means, you will not be getting its full 7.1 mega pixel quality at the highest iso speed. picture noise is quite visible from iso 800.

i personally felt that the build quality is better than the others although it perhaps would not get you as much attention as the other two, making this the perfect camera for street photography to landscapes, and portrait to sports action.

would i choose any of these cameras as an alternative to a dlsr?

the main advantage of these dslr like cameras would be the zoom. if you were to carry a 600 metre zoom for a dslr it would be too heavy to use without a monopod and very cumbersome to use. a fixed lens means that there is no room for dust getting inside the camera.

the disadvatages are numerous. other than the panasonic, a low end dslr with good quality lens would take much sharper pictures. you can change different types of lenses depending on your shooting preference and condition. dslr cameras are a little bit better built even at the entry level of offering. lastly, dslr prices have really started to come down so much that it might not be so much of an advantage to get these superzoom bridge cameras.

[Ehsan]

Hello photography experts,

Its time for me to use your expertise as I plan to buy a DSLR this week. I am going for a package that comes with two lenses 18-55 and 55 - 250mm.

The camera I am thinking of is either Canon Rebel XS or XSi, but could not decide on one. I do not care that XSi has 2 more megapixels as I don't need much large pictures. I am sure there probably are other functional differences. That's why I look to you guys. The price difference is of $200. Is it worth it?

[DJ Sahastra]

After a long deliberation between xs and xsi and waiting 6 months for prices to fall somewhat, i finally bought a canon xsi a couple of months back.

I paid $776 for canon xsi with 18-55 and 55 to 250 mm lens ($632 for camera with 18-55mm kit lens, $244 for 55-250mm canon lens and $100 discount for buying camera and extra lens together).

xs is a good buy if you are on budget as it saves around 160-180 dollars. good bang for a buck.

P.S: My actual expenses went close to a grand or more. I bought the canon rebel xsi case with spare battery, filter and class 6 sd card for around $90. Additionally, i bought a canon 50mm f/1.8 lens (fast lens) and canon 250D macro lens supplement (forms a poor man's macro lens when used with 55-250mm lens) for another $150 and a lowepro holster bag for $25. Everything purchased from amazon.

[Ehsan]

What's really the advantage of XSi over XS? I don't care about the pixels. Is 3.5 pictures Vs 3.0 pictures per second a big deal?

[Akib]

I'm probably gonna buy one next winter break (very low on money atm). Hopefully something nice comes out. I am looking for live view, though, otherwise D40 is perfect.

[Ehsan]

Originally Posted by DJ Sahastra
P.S: My actual expenses went close to a grand or more. I bought the canon rebel xsi case with spare battery, filter and class 6 sd card for around $90. Additionally, i bought a canon 50mm f/1.8 lens (fast lens) and canon 250D macro lens supplement (forms a poor man's macro lens when used with 55-250mm lens) for another $150 and a lowepro holster bag for $25. Everything purchased from amazon.

Oh you gotta explain a lot of things to me.

Why a filter? Isn't it built-in?

Why a 50mm lens when you already have 18-55mm lense? What's the benefit of macro lens?

[DJ Sahastra]

Originally Posted by Ehsan
Oh you gotta explain a lot of things to me.

Why a filter? Isn't it built-in?

Why a 50mm lens when you already have 18-55mm lense? What's the benefit of macro lens?

Hi Ehsan,

1. There are add-on filter lens for many different uses (UV filtering etc.) but i use one just to protect the main lens. It costs around $5-10 and generally protects your lens from scratches etc. apart from filtering out the UV component (not relevant for most general photography purposes). I recommend an add-on filter. $10 will hold your main lens in a good stead.

2. You will soon realise that with an SLR, there is no limit to creativitity and no limit to how many and what types of lens you'll buy. What i quoted above, in my opinion, are very basic small beginners lenses. 50mm f/1.8 lens is the so called "fast lens" with a fixed focus. If you see your 18-55mm lens or 55-250mm lens, you'll notice their f value to be above 3.5 which basically talks about the lens aperture (lower the f value, greater the lens aperture. So an f1.8 is faster than f2.8 lens and so on). If you are looking for faster lens (usually preferred for shooting in low light conditions), you'll need need something line f2.8, f1.8 etc.

3. Macro lens are used for usually taking a 1:1 picture (object is captured at the same size on your sensor frame as its actual size - used for very tiny details - for example picture of an ant or a grasshopper or even your finger tip). Macro lenses are expensive and start from $300 onwards. But a poor man's macro involves buying a lens supplement like a 250D add-on (cost less than $100) and screwing it to your 55-250mm lens. It works until you save enough to buy a macro lens.

Please note that just 18-55mm lens can be enough. It all depends upon how you plan to use your camera.

4. There is no significant difference between xs and xsi. Here is a detailed list from a reviewer on amazon and i think it lists the difefrences and similarities in an elaborate manner. To sum it up, none of the differences mentioned should matter.

61 Reviews 5 star: (48) 4 star: (9) 3 star: (2) 2 star: (0) 1 star: (2) Average Customer Review (61 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews Canon XSi and XS Features Comparison, August 16, 2008 By Al Aquino (New York City USA) - See all my reviews * December 7, 2008 * When I originally wrote this review back in August 2008, the price of the XSi and the XS kits were the same. Back then, you would have been foolish to buy the XS kit when the XSi offered a lot more at the same price. During the second-half of 2008, the price of the XS kit has dropped significantly. Due to the significant price difference between the Canon XSi kit and the Canon XS kit, I have revised this article. The Canon EOS Rebel XS is the "little brother" of the Canon EOS Rebel XSi which means they are both almost the same camera, but the XSi has more to offer than the XS. Perhaps consider basing your buying decision on how serious you will be taking up digital SLR photography. If you firmly believe that you will take digital SLR photography very seriously in the long run and want a solid entry-level digital SLR camera, then the Canon XSi may be a better choice for you. If price is your main concern and you are only looking for Canon's bottom entry-level digital SLR model, then the current price of the Canon XS kit is quite worthy of a purchase consideration. Both models were released in 2008, with the Canon XSi released in April and the Canon XS released four months later in August. By comparison, the XS is a trimmed-down version of the XSi. Here are the notable similarities of the XSi and the XS: * Both have practically the same large single-plate CMOS sensor and the Digic III Image Processor, except the XSi is 12.2MP while the XS is only 10.1MP (megapixels). * Both have the Canon EOS Integrated Cleaning System. * Both can be purchased with the same EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Kit Lens. It is possible to buy the XSi camera body without the kit lens. * Both have Live View Function with their LCD displays. * Both are fully compatible with Canon EF and EF-S lenses. * Both utilize SD and SDHC memory cards. * Both use the same battery pack (LP-E5) and the same optional battery grip (BG-E5). * The XS is compatible with most of the Canon EOS camera system accessories that can be used with the XSi. Now here are the differences between the XS and the XSi: * The XSi has more megapixels at 12.2MP while the XS is 10.1MP. * For JPEG, the XSi can continuously shoot at 3.5 fps while the XS can do 3.0 fps. But for RAW, the XSi is much better at 3.5 fps while the XS can only do 1.5 fps. * The LCD monitor of the XSi measures 3.0 inches while the XS has a smaller screen at 2.5 inches. * The XSi has a 9-point AF system while the XS has only a 7-point. * The XSi has Spot metering while the XS does not. Both have Evaluative, Partial, and Center-weighted metering, however. * The XSi RAW is 14-bit while the XS RAW is 12-bit. * XSi has Highlight Tone Priority while XS does not. * The viewfinder of the XSi provides 0.87x magnification while the XS provides 0.81x. * The XSi can utilize the RC-1 or the RC-5 wireless remote shutter release, but the XS is not compatible with either so you won't be able to use a wireless remote release. * You cannot buy the XS without the kit lens.

[Ehsan]

Thanks, DJ. You've been of great help. Is photography your hobby? Show us some of your arts.

BTW how important is spot metering as XS doesn't have it. Can you explain a bit on RAW/JPEG thing? Why did you end up buying XSi, any particular need?

[DJ Sahastra]

Hi Ehsan,

I thought of loading some pics. I just didn't know how to load it on banglacricket. Maybe i'll load on some free site and post the link.

In very simple words, spot metering is not important. There is a learning curve after which you even think of using any of the metering options and the provided options are more than enough for quite sometime.

SLRs allow you the option to store the picture in raw format or jpeg. jpeg is compressed so it takes smaller space on the memory card. But jpeg is not as versatile as the raw format for post-processing (picture editing like adjusting light, colour, sharpness etc). I take picture in both format (RAW + JPEG) as once in a while, some classic photo maybe in a desperate need for some post-processing. But most of the times, JPEG format is good enough. RAW format takes more than 10MB per pic. JPEG takes around 4-5MB. Compression is near lossless.

I bought XSI because in one fine moment, i was like what the heck, let me choose one and move on. The only driving factor was, it may have a better resale value when i decide to upgrade and may take a while to be obsolete. I am not convinced about my own reasons but i just moved on. I am very happy with my XSI But i am sure i would've loved the XS too.

[DJ Sahastra]

Here are a few pics. No editing of any kind on any pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35787896@N08/

[Murad]

Originally Posted by DJ Sahastra
Here are a few pics. No editing of any kind on any pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35787896@N08/

Nice Pics DJ

I liked the bird pic. I just downloaded it but its kind of small for my screen. Do you have any bigger size than that?

[DJ Sahastra]

Originally Posted by muradnyc
Nice Pics DJ

I liked the bird pic. I just downloaded it but its kind of small for my screen. Do you have any bigger size than that?

Thanks.

If you can provide an email address, i can send you the actual jpeg.

[kalpurush]

Originally Posted by DJ Sahastra
Here are a few pics. No editing of any kind on any pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35787896@N08/

Nice pics! Dulavai-er hat val.
What was the aperture settings? 8 or 5.6 for the first 2?
Looks like you didn't use the macro lense, or did you?

[kalpurush]

Originally Posted by DJ Sahastra
Here are a few pics. No editing of any kind on any pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35787896@N08/

Photo: DJ Sahastra

[DJ Sahastra]

Originally Posted by kalpurush
Nice pics! Dulavai-er hat val.
What was the aperture settings? 8 or 5.6 for the first 2?
Looks like you didn't use the macro lense, or did you?

Thanks.

I don't have the raw file for those pics but if i recall , you are right in that the bird pic seems to be around 7.0-8.0 and the duck pic is 10.0-11-0. For no particular reason, when i expirement with the f stops, it is usually like 5.6, 8.0, 11.0, 22.0.

My macro combination (55-250mm + 250d close up lens) gives me 2-3 acceptable pic out of 10. I haven't mastered the technique as yet. I just posted a macro pic. It is those tiny flowers in the grass that you never notice. Not the best but gives a fair idea. For comparison, i also posted the 'normal' flower pic.