I need a new digital SLR camera: could anyone please suggest one?

[NikonFL]

Thank you Gil, your opinion has been very helpful. I know D600 is surely out of my range but fortunately D7000 is not: you can purchase a brand new D7000 for as low as £450.00 (the next lowest is £580.00) here in England. This would provide me with a budget of £420.00 to £550.00 to purchase a good lens, which I think is sufficient.

I just checked a major NY Nikon USA store who sells the D7000 kit with 18-105 for about $1300 and the D7000 kit with 18-200 for about $1600. You'll have some other expenses for SD cards, extra battery, bag, etc but you're right and your budget should be ok for the D7000. You'll simply have to decide Canon vs Nikon. Neither the 18-105 or 18-200 can be classified as lenses for "action" shots, but they are fine for portraiture and landscape. I am quite pleased with the D7000, but shoot almost no action.

Gil

[ajohnw]

Thank you Gil, your opinion has been very helpful. I know D600 is surely out of my range but fortunately D7000 is not: you can purchase a brand new D7000 for as low as £450.00 (the next lowest is £580.00) here in England. This would provide me with a budget of £420.00 to £550.00 to purchase a good lens, which I think is sufficient.

You may be able to purchase a camera and 2 lens package within your budget. It would be wrong to put you of the cheaper lenses from either canon or nikon. The main problem with going in that direction is at some point most people lust after "better" lenses. These lenses do come at an excellent price when bought as part of a kit so that option is always worth looking at.

If you buy mail order it might be worth seeing what pixmania have. They also sell on ebay. Unlike some discount outfits they do not sell funny imports. I had a problem with a camera I bought of them recently and they even arranged for a carrier to pick it up and send it back to them. I initially just asked for a refund and they still arranged for a carrier. To see their ebay listings you need to tick the eu option as they are mainly based in France. Items take 3 or 4 days to arrive.

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[chontrell]

If I found a camera was over exposing I would set it to a minusEV setting. But the whole question of judging cameras from -photos on the web is highly questionable since we don't know if your end is accurately set ...I know mine is not so never look at such photos

Setting the DSLR to a minus EV setting is one method of (probably a better method) dealing with the problem of 'over exposing' camera. The above mentioned review article suggests this as well. Just to bear in mind; using a polariser would produce the same effect.

[Mito]

The main thrust of the thread is that there is no "best" brand. But most importantly "TRY BEFORE YOU BUY"

This I think is the best advice of all. You live in London so I would imagine you can hire equipment. Over a few weekends try various models to see how they perform for you.
Remember too that there are other makes. I like Pentax and have a K20D with which I am very happy. One advantage is that it has in-camera stabilization which negates the need for stabilized lenses. Whatever, enjoy photography!

[NikonFL]

This I think is the best advice of all. You live in London so I would imagine you can hire equipment. Over a few weekends try various models to see how they perform for you.
Remember too that there are other makes. I like Pentax and have a K20D with which I am very happy. One advantage is that it has in-camera stabilization which negates the need for stabilized lenses. Whatever, enjoy photography!

Yes, clearly should consider cameras other than Nikon and Canon. As I stated earlier, I shoot almost no action shots. If I was heavily into action photography I would definitely research SONY Alpha a77 as a camera body, U.S. price about $1300. Rated at 12 frames a second, clearly the fastest digital camera. Not a DSLR as there is no mirror. Highly rated video as well.

Gil

[Manfred M]

Thank you Gil, your opinion has been very helpful. I know D600 is surely out of my range but fortunately D7000 is not: you can purchase a brand new D7000 for as low as £450.00 (the next lowest is £580.00) here in England. This would provide me with a budget of £420.00 to £550.00 to purchase a good lens, which I think is sufficient.

I would suggest that it is easy to get a "good lens" for portraiture and landscape photography for the price range you are looking at. My wife loves her f/3.5 -5.6 18-200mm lens, and while it has its issues (as do any lenses with the wide focal lenth range), it has been her go to lens since the day she bought her D90. It would certainly take care of your portrait and landscape needs.

Things become a bit trickier when you start looking at a lens for action photography as that usually implies that you need a fast, long lens that focuses quickly. My "go to" lens there is the f/2.8 70-200mm, and it performs very well, but it is quite expensive and weighs a lot. While I have never used it, I understand that the f/4-5.6 70-300mm Nikkor does focus quickly, but is is not a super fast lens, but it does an adequate job for the price.

The Sony A77 mentioned in the previous post is a bit of a strange beast. It uses a fixed pellicle (semi-silvered) mirror that sits in the optical path. The upside is that does not have to get out of the way during exposure, so you do get extremely fast frame rate, the downside is that low light performance will suffer as less than 100% of the light actually gets to the sensor, so low light performance is not in the same league as DSLRs. Both Canon and Nikon have put out pellicle SLRs in the past (film cameras) and these were not particularly successful. Let's hope that the improved technology overcome the drawback of this design.

[hoffstriker]

I say: "Just buy a 1DX!"

[Donald]

I say: "Just buy a 1DX!"

But you always need a backup, so best to get two!

[PhotomanJohn]

Chontrell - There has been a lot of good advice given here which will hopefully help you. I have been involved with photography most of my long life and have say that either of those cameras would not be the limiting factor in my photography. The limiting factor is me. You can see from my signature I have chosen the D7000 and am totally pleased with my choice over the 7D which I was also considering. That is not to say that I wouldn't be just as happy with the 7D. Like has been said before, try out the cameras, see how they feel and how convenient the controls are for your hands. Forget whether it is a Nikon, Canon, Sony or other. Like me, I suspect that the camera you choose will not limit your photography for a good number of years.

Best wishes and enjoy this wonderful hobby.

John

[jcuknz]

I too am sure there is no 'best brand' and it largely comes down to how the camera feels in your hands and what sort of collection of lenses you are likely to buy now and in the future. Whatever I and some others think that in the long term the DSLR is on the way out ... this is a long term view with regard to the shear weight of numbers of DSLRs in peoples hands at this point in time. But when you look at what an amateur needs the DSLR, even the APS-C type, is a professional camera designed for hard use and there is the 'new' digital animal proving itself ... the M4/3, some of them anyway, with superior features for those used to such features in previous cameras such as live-view, touch screen ... the only snag that assuming your budget is in US$ it is a little shy of what is needed, last time I looked at Amazon/ B&H, to duplicate my rig which is a Panasonic GH2 with the 14-140 lens by a couple of hundred, or 20% of your budget which could be a hurdle.
"Try before you buy" could be a good idea but reputable makes make this less important. I don't think one should visit bricks and mortar and then buy on the web. Good cameras are so complicated these days that whatever you buy will be a steep learning curve.

[josemiller123]

Since this is an art site, I will assume we are talking about fine art photography. As in all other forms of art, photographers have preferences for the tools and methods they like to use in order to achieve the "look" they desire. It is an artistic choice.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Chontrell,

Just to add my 2c worth:

Yours is a very common question, and I think folks often question "what is the right camera" on the assumption that if they get this "difficult" question wrong then they've wasted their money and ended up with the "wrong" camera, whereas in reality there is a HUGE overlap in capability between most cameras at a given price point. So it's really not so much a case of "right or wrong" as it is "relatively minor differences between them".

To pick up on some of your earlier points ...

especially the 'buffer capacity' problems of the camera when it comes to shooting 'Action Photography'

If you're shooting RAW (as you should be) then you'll probably find that most cameras - with an average memory card - normally fill the buffer after about 3 seconds. In the real world this should be plenty -- if you're needing bursts longer than that I'd normally ask the question "are you taking photos or shooting a movie"! Unfortunately, since I started saying that most new cameras actually DO have a movie mode which kinda takes some of the impact out of it (mind you, if you need more than 3 seconds worth then maybe one SHOULD be using movie mode!). I shoot with a Canon 1Dx that'll do up to 12 frames per second ... and I still get "only" about 3 seconds of buffer (although with a NZD $1000 CF card it clears that buffer pretty darn quick!). Keep in mind too that to get the high frame rates (that impact on buffer performance) you need high shutterspeeds - and they aren't always possible in the "real world". In real world photography you'll probably get a better result with multiple better timed short bursts than you will with a "spray and pray" longer burst.

They have also demonstrated that pictures taken by a Nikon D7000 on a sunny day have almost every time came out to be overexposed.

Comments like this annoy me (not you - I'm referring to the reviewers). Assuming that the camera isn't faulty then all cameras are calibrated to the same ISO standards - and in the real world will only have relatively small exposure metering variation due to the different hardware and software solutions they employ. In real-world term though "who cares". As has been already mentioned, if the metering is getting it wrong then dial in some -VE EC - THAT'S WHAT IT'S THERE FOR. Additionally, if you're shooting RAW (as you should be) then you'll have typically a 2 stop safety margin above your highlights -- and I've yet to see any metering get an exposure THAT wrong on a consistent basis.

the colours in a picture produced by a Canon EOS D60 were more vibrant and closer to the natural colours of the subjects.

If you're shooting RAW (as you should be) then the colours that pop out of any brand will depend on processing presets that you use. It can be as easy as locking in a small vibrance increase and using a "Camera Faithful" profile over a "Camera Landscape" profile.

Just to bear in mind; using a polariser would produce the same effect.

Not sure what you're meaning here - using a polariser shouldn't have any effect on camera metering.

My personal observation is that although Nikon Nikkor lenses are superior to that of Canon's

Not true I'm afraid. In reality I think that (a) if a battery of technical tests were conducted across the entire range of current Canon and Nikon glass then both camps would score numerous wins - it definitely wouldn't be one-sided. Regardless though - in most cases - any differences between - say - a Nikon 70-200 and a Canon 70-200 will make approximately ZERO visible difference to everyday photos - especially considering that 95% of captured information is discarded from a captured photo when it's down-sampled for online display (and can't be resolved by the human eye in a small or even a medium sized print).

The BIGGEST variables in the quality of the final image will be determined by photographer skill & technique (both at time of capture & subsequent post-processing), and lighting (especially for portraits).

Hope this helps

[Shadowman]

Perhaps it's time for a Frequently Asked Questions" section located with the tutorials or the New Member section. I don't think it will restrict these frequent questions from being asked, but if the section also included some examples such as:


"My lens has a focusing issue (I've asked this one many times), what can I do?" Provide steps to take to test the lens, suggestions for contacting the manufacturer, etc.

[NikonFL]

Hi All,

I am a novice in photography...

Chontrell, Did you shoot your Facebook Cover photos with the N60? If so, why bother shooting action? Stick with Landscape and Portraits.

Regards,
Gil

[Manfred M]

Hi Chontrell,
Unfortunately, since I started saying that most new cameras actually DO have a movie mode which kinda takes some of the impact out of it (mind you, if you need more than 3 seconds worth then maybe one SHOULD be using movie mode

Remembering of course there are limits of trying to use a frame of a video from a DSLR for a still image. You are not going to get a great still image. Your camera is going to shoot in one of the movie modes (24 frames per second (fps), 25 (PAL) / 30 (NTSC) fps or 60 fps), but only at either 1020 x 720 (1k) or 1920 x 1080 (2k) image size. The camera will be compressing the video using group of fields (GoF) and throwing away most of the data that the sensor is capable of recording. GoFs are generally constant size, regardless of frame rate and image size, so a higher frame rate is going to and higher resolution is going to give more artifacts in the decompressed image. Most DSLRs are going to give you highest quality at 24 fps, but this is not great for smooth, high-speed motion in your pans.

Your shutter speed will generally be slower than what you shoot with in camera mode as a bit of action smearing won’t be noticeable at the frame rate you are viewing a video, but will show up in your still images.

There are all kinds of other techniques used in digital video that reduce the overall quality of an image; colour sampling, compression, interlacing (if you are shooting this mode), etc. that will lower the quality still images. One does not tend to notice this while watching the video, but it will really pop out when studying a still image.

There are some outboard recording devices that at least partially mitigate these issues buy eliminating some of the sampling and compression issues, but these are expensive, but this means the results will be better, but still no where near what a still image will give you.

Bottom line - using video footage to extract a still image is generally going to give you disappointing results...

[ajohnw]

More and more complications always crop up in threads like these.

One of the problems with reviews is that it's possible to find totally contradictory ones on all sorts of subjects. That's why on cameras I prefer to look at dpreview note the conclusions etc but concentrate on the actual tests. It doesn't take much effort to understand them especially for some one with some knowledge of photography.

Exposure behaviour varies according to the camera even in similar exposure modes - one centre weighted average for instance is likely to be different to anothers. On of my pet hates having used Nikon's film cameras but that's probably not suitable for digital. Sometimes centre average is mentioned as being suitable for advanced users - raw. Really a person is likely to have to get used to the way a camera behaves whatever exposure mode they use. Often it's just a case of looking at a scene of some sort and realising that the camera is likely to clip it and bringing more off that into the metering area, locking the exposure, reframing and taking the shot. Or bracketing of course or even both. Dslr's have limited dynamic range so it's a case of having some idea what can be recovered later via software and squeezed into a jpg or print as these have even less dynamic range. No different to film really other than I suspect paper had more dynamic and tonal range - on those detail was dodged or burned for the same reason. Some shots will be just point and shoot in a suitable metering mode. Maybe a specific camera mode as well. Getting to grips with all of these aspects on any camera along with it's other settings can take so long I sometimes wonder why they put them there other than full auto modes for specific scenes which can be selected quickly so I concentrate on exposure. A Pen is a fascinating aspect of that. There are so many variations available in the camera it might be possible to spend 1/2 hr taking a single shot. I just worry about capturing the detail to the level I want.

There have been long threads on shooting jpg or raw. I mostly shoot jpg and try to take some care to use an exposure level that allows me to bring out what needs to be bought out when shots are likely to need that. Actually doing that ensures there will be more usable info in the raw if it's needed. One of the most quoted reasons for using raw is that it gives more exposure latitude. In some ways that is a bit dated as camera dynamic range curves have changed over the years and there is lots of compressed tonal range in a modern camera jpg. There always has been in the dark end. These are the curves for a 5D MkIII as an example. That one is pretty mild really.



The only parts of those curves that will visually look anything like stops on a pc screen or a print is the linear part of each curve. Canon have always been keen on the ADL normal type one where highlights are not compressed at all. They are also conservative about how much of the highlight end in raw they choose to use in the jpg but adding various degrees of compression is changing that. All raw is really achieving is to add more range and a user specified curve. Often that isn't needed and the detail can be bought out in a jpg so why bother. It's also rather difficult for a user to make up a curve that is so suitable for further processing. Some just set a black point and white point and have a straight line between them or accept what "magic" is in the software package they are using. When an image is modified in software the view is effectively in a 3x8bit colour space and very often just simple contrast and brightness changes will improve it from either source. The camera curves even vary with iso making use of std raw presets even more difficult.. This is an example of what happens when a camera takes a shot that has too much dynamic range for it, Pen's have compression with bells on. I exposed for the sky as it's more difficult to recover well and I like natural skies.. I've brightened odd areas up to show most of what is compressed in it's jpg's. There are 2 brightened areas on the end of the church.



Taking this shot as seen by eye would be rather difficult with any camera. The final shot I finished up with is in mini competition 1324 on here. I aimed to obtain a shot like that when I took it. In this case the jpg was ok if I had got it wrong I would have used the raw to achieve the same thing. Other possibilities are fake high dynamic range from raw and true high dynamic range where a number of specific exposures are combined. There are some really silly comments made in the area of raw, exposure and all sorts of other things but one message is clear. People look round the web especially and see wonderful pictures and often don't realise that one aspect is technique - using the camera and another is software. Some on here use full blown Adobe or something approaching it, CS?? others use Lightroom. As I run Linux by choice I use several free open source packages. Unfortunately the most useful one only runs on Linux. This is something else you may need to budget for at some point. There is always open source software as another option. It can get worse. Getting fed up of wondering just what my shots looked like on other people pc's I recently bought a monitor calibrator. On the cheap as usual, used and outdated software so I use it with open source software. Worse still processing the above shot finally caused me to update my monitor as I got fed up with making sure I was looking dead face on to it and getting a better over all impression some distance away from it. and so it goes on. I've been processing shots for my own use for years. I used to just use the Gimp in a fairly limited way - free open source software again. Now I wonder about my latest monitor calibration on the new monitor. 101% by volume sRGB coverage and 93% sRGB colour coverage, it's a little short at the blue end at the moment.. IPS lcd to get round the viewing angle problems and led lit. Wondering as I am not convinced that the gamma it's set to is correct for my ambient light levels - the calibrator probably doesn't measure these correctly. very probably actually. No problem on my previous monitor.

Lens quality is another interesting aspect. The cheaper so called kit lens range are fine for most things as they finish up on the web or on smallish prints up to say A4 size at least. People get rid of them at some point often without realising what they really need from a lens. If the extreme zoom range ones are avoided they are unlikely to disappoint really. It's an odd fact that zooms with up to a 3:1 range have usually been near primes in performance. 4:1's vary and they get worse and worse as the range goes up. For web sized shots that probably doesn't matter. I prefer a certain degree of quality as it's usually possible to double the effective focal length or more by cropping shots especially for the web. When considering better lenses often the best option is faster lenses and that means shorter zoom ranges or primes and far more expensive lenses. Some of the aps lenses that fall into that category are a lot more than just good yet people may feel inclined to go for full frame lenses to get larger zoom ratios that still have relatively slow apertures.

I started this mid morning, went out several times, ate lunch and more recently dinner so it may all still hang together,
-

Whoops forgot to add - if you want to seek out that perfect moment in a tennis serve or anything else like it you are most likely to succeed shooting jpg as there will be far more shots to choose from. Many do

[chontrell]

Chontrell, Did you shoot your Facebook Cover photos with the N60? If so, why bother shooting action? Stick with Landscape and Portraits.

Regards,
Gil

Gil, The sunset scenery was shot with a Nikon D7000 and the other was shot with Nikon N60. The pictures I have on this website were all shot with N60, except one of my son's picture which was shot with a Nikon D300.

Regards,

Chontrell

[Colin Southern]

Remembering of course there are limits of trying to use a frame of a video from a DSLR for a still image. You are not going to get a great still image. Your camera is going to shoot in one of the movie modes (24 frames per second (fps), 25 (PAL) / 30 (NTSC) fps or 60 fps), but only at either 1020 x 720 (1k) or 1920 x 1080 (2k) image size. The camera will be compressing the video using group of fields (GoF) and throwing away most of the data that the sensor is capable of recording. GoFs are generally constant size, regardless of frame rate and image size, so a higher frame rate is going to and higher resolution is going to give more artifacts in the decompressed image. Most DSLRs are going to give you highest quality at 24 fps, but this is not great for smooth, high-speed motion in your pans.

Your shutter speed will generally be slower than what you shoot with in camera mode as a bit of action smearing won’t be noticeable at the frame rate you are viewing a video, but will show up in your still images.

There are all kinds of other techniques used in digital video that reduce the overall quality of an image; colour sampling, compression, interlacing (if you are shooting this mode), etc. that will lower the quality still images. One does not tend to notice this while watching the video, but it will really pop out when studying a still image.

There are some outboard recording devices that at least partially mitigate these issues buy eliminating some of the sampling and compression issues, but these are expensive, but this means the results will be better, but still no where near what a still image will give you.

Bottom line - using video footage to extract a still image is generally going to give you disappointing results...

I agree!

I wasn't being 100% serious by the way - really just saying that one needs to use the right tool for the job. Obviously using video mode isn't really the right tool for capturing longer sequences if individual frames are desired ... but then again, shooting sequences of stills longer than 3 seconds isn't really what DSLRs were designed for either.

Just trying to point out that the D7000 doesn't appear to be any better or worse in terms of buffer capacity compared to any other camera (probably no worse than my 1DX) - and that even a faster frame rate can't always be used to it's full potential.

[chontrell]

Not sure what you're meaning here - using a polariser shouldn't have any effect on camera metering.

I have read somewhere (but don't remember where now) that linear polarisers MAY have some effect on camera metering so 'they' were advising the reader to purchase circular polarisers. This link also provides a lesson on polarisers (Lesson 17) and describes the effect I have mentioned beforehand:

http://www.udemy.com/karl-taylors-fr...graphy-course/

Regards,

Chontrell

[Manfred M]

I have read somewhere (but don't remember where now) that linear polarisers MAY have some effect on camera metering so 'they' were advising the reader to purchase circular polarisers. This link also provides a lesson on polarisers (Lesson 17) and describes the effect I have mentioned beforehand:

http://www.udemy.com/karl-taylors-fr...graphy-course/

Regards,

Chontrell

Quite correct Chontrell, linear polarizers do not work with DLSRs. Neither the metering nor the autofocus technology works properly if you use them. In fact my 36 year old Leica R3 needed CPol filters because of the metering mechanism. The moment you get into beam splitters and semi-silvered mirrors, you need to use CPols.