Digital SLR's

[Gavin]

Hi folks, thinking of taking the plunge on a Digital SLR. We currently have a Pentax Optio WPi. The Pentax is a great knock around no worries camera, but we want something more capbable for outdoor photography, etc. Any recommendations on what we should be looking for in a good reasonably priced Digital SLR?

Gavin

[WebFreeman]

I have a couple co-workers w/ digital Canon Rebels. They really like them and I think other Canon lenses will fit it. I've just held them, but they seem to look and feel just like a film SLR. I work in a Marketing Dept and we have 6-8 Canons from point-and-shoot to SLR w/ not a bad thing to say about them.

[tippet7]

We just bought a Nikon D100 with a 28-80 mm lens for $500 with 3 batteries.

we ordered a 80-200 mm zoom, filters and a bag. i love this camera, cant wait to get it to the lake and take a couple of photos of some jumping trout!

[Brian Wise]

Tippet7,

If you just got a D100 for $500 I am super jealous!! Where did you get it??

Gavin,

I have a Nikon D50 and absolutely love it. I'll post some shots of Hodgson Mill I took with it...

I have the kit lens(18-55mm) and a 70-300mm, the 300mm is where it's at!

Great camera

Brian

[tippet7]

Brian,

I got it from our new photography stuido manager here at Dick Clarks. he is a pro and he had a few cameras when he got here. i got to talking to him about SLRs and he offered me the D100, i told mama about it and the next day we were taking pics with it. i love it, but i dont think i will get to play with it too much.

he also has a cannon(i think its a cannon) for sale as well. here at the theater we are using D2s and D50s with the wireless and all sorts of other very cool gagets.

[Gavin]

Thanks for the suggestions. My wife has an Canon SLR film camera with a couple decent lenses, so well probably be looking in that direction.

[Rolan Duffield]

Gavin:

Do you have any specific type of work or specific requirements you want to achieve with the Digital camera? Price range, lens capability, etc.?

Good lens quality is one of my first requirements.

The better Kodak, Cannon and Nikon cameras generally have very good lens quality. I don't know about other brands.

I am using a Kodak DX7590. Quality is very good though I'm from the old school and would prefer manual settings rather than being locked into Auto Focus, Auto Exposure and Auto color systems.

A good camera software program is a must with the Digital Cameras.

Many of the better Kodak cameras come with the Easy Share software allowing you capability to make simple corrections in your pictures.

[Brian Wise]

What do you think about Picasa Roland? I really like it for quick "easy fixes" but I'm still real new at this stuff.

Brian

[Al Agnew]

I've been shooting the Nikon D100 for a couple or three years, since not too long after it came onto the scene. Chose it originally because I'd always used Nikon SLRs so I already had some lenses. It's been a good camera body.

As an artist, I don't try to take publishable quality images, I'm mainly looking for pictures of reasonably good sharpness to use as reference for my paintings. I'm now pretty much shooting all digital--before I was shooting both slides and prints, because the slides gave you better color but the prints were easier to work with. Now I get pretty good, true to life color which I've learned to manipulate in Photoshop to get MORE true to life, or change the color of the light if I want.

As for lenses, the 28-80 Nikon autofocus lens is my standard for landscapes, but I really love the Sigma 50-500 zoom for wildlife work. It's not a real fast lens, but you don't need as fast a lens with digital as I did with print and slides to get usable results. And you can put a 2x doubler on that sucker and get some nice closeups. If the light is good, I can even stack two doublers, giving me something like a 2000 mm lens! Don't expect to get super sharp photos with such a set-up, but if that grizzly is out there 500 yards away and you know it ain't gonna come closer, at least you can get some usable photos of it.

[Rolan Duffield]

Brian:

I'm not familiar with "Picasa". I assume this is a photo image editing software program.

There are many programs available and new ones being introduced all the time.

The elite program is still Photoshop though it's quite expensive. There are simpler versions of Photoshop available, depending on your needs.

Here's a source you might visit to learn whats generally available for Photo Software programs.

www.digital-photo-print-site.com/articles/DigitalPhotoPrintSite7.html