Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm going to give you the advice I received, and am glad I followed. Don't get a zoom lens, get a prime one. For one, kit zoom lenses will be terrible. For two, prime lenses are really cheap (£50-100 will get you a really, really nice fast one which'll perform really nicely in low-light). But most importantly, by forcing yourself to shoot without zoom for a while, you have to think harder about composition. When you do get a zoom, that extra control lever you can twiddle becomes a tool, rather than a crutch.

Yeah, I appreciate that Doc, thanks.

My question was which out of these two affordable options should I go for, there's not a great deal of difference between the two really, but is there an obvious advantage that one has over the other.

If I went for body only and a prime it would still cost me more than these two options.

MrsA bought an Olympus Evolt E-300 and we took it out yesterday. it's pretty nifty, and was good vfm.

I think you'll find they're virtually identical. The only real difference lies in the availability and range of lenses, and my personal view is that the Canon slightly has the edge in that area.

This chap might help you decide, Zardoz - good ol' Ken Rockwell, he generally knows the score in his excellent reviews:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/index.htm

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/index.htm

I hear Nikon's kit lenses are just a little bit better than Cannons, which was why I chose my D40x. But there's really very little in it. Cannon does have the edge in range of lenses, but Nikon lenses are very nice. Your shout entirely, though expect to get a curious emotional attachment to whichever of the virtually identical brands you go for. *Hugs Nikon*

There's a very good, friendly Nikon community at Nikonians.org, which is so peachy they even have a subforum for their traditional arch-enemy, the Cannon users.

Cheers guys, now to tell the good news to Mrs Z.

Ha ha "tell" hahahahahahaha

The Nikon is shit (compared to your lovely sounding D40 which I can't get interest free from Jessops). The Canon 'review' was practically a press release.

From what everyone has said, I think i'll be going for the Canon.

Unless Mrs Z says "uh-uh, no-noes".

I think they've phased out the D40's. Boo-urns. I think Rockwell's overstressing the loss of light sensitivity a bit, but anyway. Have super-fun with your new Canon - I wish we could have a flame war ala Xbox vs PS3 but the differences are trivial. Shock!

Exactly.

In other news I'm now toying with the idea of getting a Canon EOS 450D from Amazon on their 9mth interest free credit card. (£451.90 -£15 for first card order)

Need to speak to wifey, obv. But I've been heavily hinting at a DSLR for a while now, fingers crossed

The joys of gadget greed!

Although if I do go down the Canon route, we will have to stop our Flickr faves and comments immediately. I'm sure you will understand. Loser.

If you want my advice, go and have a play around with any cameras before you buy them. Even if you only get to hold it without actually firing off any shots, make sure it's comfortable and weighty enough, with controls you can use without contorting your fingers and thumbs.

Is the D40 the one with combined Aperture/Shutter controls on one wheel, with a function button to switch between them? I could never do with that; separate controls for important actions, please! Although if it slows you down, it's no always a bad thing.

It does slow me down a little, so I always try to make sure I take into account what I want to shoot and prepare before hand. It's more of a pain when it's cold and I have numb fingers, having to hold down the button and spin the dial. I'm used to it though, can't imagine the luxury of seperate dials now!

I plan on spending tomorrow lunch time in Jessops.

Remember to haggle a bit if you're spending a decent amount. I knocked a couple of hundred quid off my kit that way.

I spend most of my life in either Av or Sv modes. Am I weird?

Nope. All modes are fine, but I love manual mode simply because I get to do exactly what I want: decide what aperture and shutter speed I want to give the effect I need, adjust the ISO if necessary, then fiddle with all of the options quickly to get the shot I want without messing with exposure compensation. There's nothing wrong with any of the modes, even auto.

I'd say not...


Also keep an eye out on Ebuyer. They sometimes have very good prices on camera's compared to warehouse express although I've had good service from Warehouse Express the same can not be said for Ebuyer.

LOLZ. I'll be buying online, obv!

I have the 450D which I think's pretty good but I've played with similar Nikon's and the only thing I think I like more is that they have a focusing light. The Cannon just flashes everyone in the room until they pass out.

I love that. It sounds like you're trying to weld something.

I has the 400D. Not sure what the 450 does better but it can't be worse, so good choice

Also: JESSOP JESSOP JESSOP

I think it just has a SD slot or something.

Battery life is the greatest thing I've ever experienced (possible lie). One battery lasted me a 3 weeks of holiday and what seems like a gazzzilon pics without a recharge... granted I didn't use the flash much but ... amazing.

I have the 350D, but I bought it in America, and they couldn't be doing with such a dull name, so it is actually the Digital Rebel XT.

Unfortunately, the 400D and the 450D are also the Digital Rebel XT.

I suspect the 350D can now be had at bargainous prices.

Disadvantages compared to the 400:

No self-cleaning mirror (of dubious worth)

Smaller LCD screen BUT makes up for it by having an extra little screen to show the shots left and stuff, like on a film camera.

Bit less pixels. Don't care.

So, good value if you are on a budget.

Also, forgot to say, I got my 400D from "Canon refurb" which is in Ireland I think, on ebay! No problems with that side of it and it was a significant saving against the best online price at the time.

If you didn't want to spend the money for the 450, you may as well get the 1000, no?

That's it, I'm going to ask for money off everyone for my birthday so I can splurge on the £179 35mm f/1.8 lens. Want low light photography for gig, indoors and coffee shop fun.

My fave types of shots are those Americana ones, sort of slightly yellowing and faded with strong light and shadows and a sense of place and dust and personality. I don't know how I'd go about taking those in Cardiff though. B'oh.

LCD screens are nice but there's no need for a big one. I follow the histogram more often now. If you have at least 9mp I'd say you're laughing too.

Oh. How do I tell which one I have, then?

I'm the digital Rebel!

I suspect they have 350, 400, or 450 somewhere on them, just in really small writing.

Awesome. I'm not sure I did the right thing with going for the F1.4 Sigma lens. It's awesome but my main issue is focusing with it in bad light and the incredibly large (small?) deep of field when doing so (Having someone's nose in focus is good but if the rest of the face is too far out it looks odd sometimes) . Good with a TriPod. It's my all round lens (hardly ever take it off apart from my wide angle)and takes good pictures what ever but the best lens I have is a bit crappy due to the crop factor was the 50mm cannon prime for 60 squid. Amazingly clear, works well in bad light and is cheap but essentially a 80mm with crop.

450D = Digital Rebel XSi
400D = Digital Rebel XTi

I think.

Either that, or you're wrong. Seems the 300D is the Digital Rebel, the 350D the Digital Rebel XT, the 400D is the Rebel XTi, and the 450D is the XSi.

The next one is the Digital Rebel Magnum Elite Force Schwarzenegger Extreme III

That's a viable alternative theory, yes.

Are you talking to me? If so, I'd rather go for the 450 then if/when Mrs Z says "How much?1111", I say, "well there's always the 1000, dearest"

That's the trade-off with having your aperture wide open: you get a lot more light, but the plane of focus is very narrow.

The new, stupidly expensive cameras have brilliant sensors to tackle these problems. You can whack the ISO up to stupid levels for low-light photography without adding too much noise, and without having to resort to using your flash, shooting wide open or pushing your shutter speed to tripod-needing lengths.

LLOL

LLMAO

Really?

True fax. I do like it though, some time it gives like a Asian gnome but it also takes it away like a cheap lady boy.

Previous gloomy one feexed now:

Wasteland Fastnesses:




'Sue Come Home'

Messing about with MrsA's new toy.

If anyone could explain tilt shifting and how it would change the church photo I would be most grateful.

Seems to be a tutorial here, not read it in detail though. Seems a bit of a rough and ready basic approach.

http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/pho ... torial.php

There are tilt shift lenses, but that's not the way the miniature effect is done, I don't think. It's all done post processing it seems. Never tried it myself, but it looks cool.

I think the key thing is to take a shot from on high, I don't think it works from low down.

Yeah it wouldn't work particularly well with that photo. It works best looking down on a fairly distant subject so as to help create the illusion of it being a model. The effect itself is simple and basically just works by having a line across the middle in focus to fool the brain into perceiving it as a miniature.

There's some sites you can use where you upload a photo and it does the work for you:

http://tiltshiftmaker.com/

Also, fuck, I need a haircut.