New and confused - need camera decision help

I agree with everything rpcrowe said. Yes for DSLR, yes for used, and those were good lens suggestions too.

Keeping in mind the fact that you would be "buying into a system" I would be very careful to pick a "winner" that will continue vigorously producing new bodies and lenses for the next few decades. Canon and Nikon are the 2 biggest players in DSLR, and between them they hold about 85% of market share! Pentax is 3rd, but they have only like 7 or 8% of market share. Old names like Pentax and Olympus really fell behind in the switch from film SLR to digital. They are swinging a little harder now, but if I were starting from scratch like you, I would worry about whether or not a Pentax or Olympus will be able to remain relevant in DSLR's. The Pentax weatherproofing and build are nice (and laudable), and I do hope they give the others a run for their money because competition makes everything better and cheaper. But I'd still worry about the health/vigor of the company if I were thinking of buying into a 4th or 5th place brand. You want them to keep upgrading bodies and lenses apace with the competition, and you also need them to not go belly-up so there will be some resale value for your old stuff when you retire it.

Do consider the Olympus OM-D/E-M5. It is very small, has interchangable lenses (room to grow,) and outstanding quality. Present-day state of the art.
You can get the camera and Olympus micro 4/3rds , 12-50mm. lens (equivalent to 24-100 mm.) for $1299.
Check the camera's review at dpreview.com

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Originally Posted by ironmonkus

to get that kind of a zoom at that price on a DSLR is impossible.

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The old saying that you get what you pay for is just as true in photography as in other things in life.

The reason you get the ludicrous long zoom ranges on the crossover cameras is that it is far easier for the manufacturer to give you a long zoom than something more useful, a like a bit more wide angle. Be forewarned that the long zoom functionality of a superzoom may be a lot less useful than you think. It will be a relatively slow lens and the autofocus tends to be a bit hit and miss. You will probably see a fair bit of distortion as well; that is pretty typical on lenses with extreme ranges of focal length. Trying to hand-hold and frame a crossover at that focal length is pretty well impossible and you will be taking lots of shots in hopes of getting a single good image.

Can you get good long shots? Of course, but you may recall in an earlier posting that I said that a good time to move up to a better camera when you get frustrated by limitations on your equipment. In my wife's case, she moved up to her D90 because of that issue. And she went there with a vengance; she picked up a Sigma 150 - 500mm lens for some extreme long wildlife shots.

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Originally Posted by ironmonkus

Brad, the salesman at the camera shop screams about how good the NEX7 is. He says he only shoots with that. Though, he is pretty aggressive at trying to sell the SONY cameras. He said he use to shoot with a 5D mark II, but prefers the NEX7 more.

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Reminds me (a lot) of the salesman who sold me my car for $5000 - told me what a great deal it was - told me how it cost him $12,000 - told me I'd be able to keep it 5 years - never spend any money on it - and sell it for what I paid for it.

You're probably all laughing right now - but I'm serious - he said all of these things. And of course none of them were true.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere ...

(He's no longer in business by the way).

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Originally Posted by Colin Southern

Reminds me (a lot) of the salesman who sold me my car for $5000

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True, although it's worth noting that in the case of the NEX-7 the hype may be warranted. It's a pretty revolutionary camera, and compares favourably (or possibly beats) the image quality of cameras costing almost 6 times as much; see for example this resolution comparison by a professional fine art photographer of the $1,200 NEX-7 and the $7,000 Leica M9:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...art_deux.shtml

Michael Reichmann spent six months with the NEX-7 and took more than 6,000 images; his final review is here:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...month_on.shtml

Clearly it's a great camera and clearly it has its limitations (as do all cameras on the market). But I wouldn't write it off just because it's not a DSLR. And it's also worth noting that because adapters are widely available, you can use a wide variety of lenses on this camera, not just E-mount, so you're not locked into a particular system. A friend of mine who teaches photography at one of the colleges here in town is using his Leica lenses on a NEX with great results.

On the other hand, it's also worth noting what Michael Reichmann wrote about the Nikon D800: "After spending the past couple of years working with the new generation of mirrorless Compact System Cameras from Olympus, Panasonic and Sony, coming back to a full-frame Nikon was like a breath of fresh air. Notwithstanding its amazing new sensor, the D800/e is a mature product – the culmination of Nikon's more than 60 years of camera design experience."

One of the big benefits you get with DSLRs is that so much has already been thought out; an evolution has been in process for a lot longer than with the newer generation of cameras.

Okay, so I took the plunge!

Thank you all again for your comments in helping me to better understand what I'm getting into.

I had a tough time deciding, because there is an endless amount of cameras out there to choose from! It came down to a few selections, but I decided on the Canon 40D for a starter camera that will probably last longer than I think.

Gear:

- Canon 40d - KEH.com, E+ quality
- Tamron 17-50 f2.8 - Ebay - 100% reseller
- Tamron 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 VC - Ebay - 100% reseller
- 2x Kingston 266x 16GB compact flash cards - Adorama
- Extra battery - Adorama
- Polarizing and ND filters - Adorama
- I have a tripod -- was my grandfathers. I wish I would have grabbed his old cameras when I had the chance. I was young and didn't know any better.
- Going to look for a bag this week, I want to see and feel the quality.

I expedited the shipping and made some two day, because this coming Saturday, I'm off to the Grand Canyon. Let's see what kind of beauty I can capture.

Thank you again,

Steve

Congratulations on your decisions, Steve. I recommend that you start a new thread explaining that you are a first-time camera user, that your equipment arrives this week and that you want to get the most out of your visit to the Grand Canyon. You might be very surprised at the responses you get, but I'll hint that I would suggest that you use the camera mostly as a point-and-shoot system until you return from vacation and have ample time to study your options.

Nice selection of equipments. I didn't get a chance to post my comments but pretty much everyone said most of what I was going to say. But from what you got, you're starting out much better than I did. Just remember, it never ends. Just hope your wife's aware of that! :D

I hope you post some photo's from your visit. Maybe put one on the competitions!

A good starter selection there, you can't go wrong with a 40D.

I have always found Lowenpro bags to be good quality at a realistic price. Currently using a Mini Trekker backpack, which will easily carry all your gear, and a holster type TLZ2 which will fit a 40D with 70-300 lens.

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Originally Posted by Mike Buckley

Congratulations on your decisions, Steve. I recommend that you start a new thread explaining that you are a first-time camera user, that your equipment arrives this week and that you want to get the most out of your visit to the Grand Canyon. You might be very surprised at the responses you get, but I'll hint that I would suggest that you use the camera mostly as a point-and-shoot system until you return from vacation and have ample time to study your options.

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Good Idea. Here it is https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/fo...htm#post227752

Cheers,

Steve

Awesome! Excellent choices, and since you are buying already used stuff, you can probably unload pieces for about the same prices you paid for them as you inevitably start upgrading over time.

You can tell your wife you didn't spend a penny; you are merely renting all the gear free for a few years; you just had to post a refundable deposit!

(...let me know if that line works; I may try it on my wife!):)

Next step ... upgrade the Tamron lenses to Canon lenses :)

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Originally Posted by Scott Stephen

You can tell your wife you didn't spend a penny

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A very accomplished photographer that uses very expensive equipment posts on another forum using a tag line indicating that when he dies, he hopes his wife doesn't sell the equipment for the prices he said he paid for them.

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Originally Posted by Mike Buckley

A very accomplished photographer that uses very expensive equipment posts on another forum using a tag line indicating that when he dies, he hopes his wife doesn't sell the equipment for the prices he said he paid for them.

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I sometimes draw some consolation from the fact that some of the invoices the wife sees are in US dollars (not as bad as NZ ones!)