£450 for a DSLR

koolpc

koolpc

koolpc

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I have £450 for a DSLR. Recommendations guys? I will probably want to buy a 50mm Prime and a body.

Budget is not that flexible due to wife!! lol

Would be using camera for all things. Not fussed about movie mode as i have a cam.

2nd hand or new is fine. Cheers
 
Nothing will be great in low light at that price. The 40D is competent in low light, and the 50 1.8 is as good as you'll be able to get in low light at that price. The first f/1.4 lenses come in at about £300+ and there is no great jump in ISO performance until you're spending £500+ on the body alone.

You'll want to check out a few places:

On here and other forums e.g. TalkPhotography there are plenty of users selling their old kit, plenty of 40Ds, Kit Lenses and Nifty Fifty's (50 1.8), but you generally need a set number of posts and time on the forum to access members' markets.

Shops like MPBPhotographic sell second hand gear. They sell a little more expensively than you'll find on forums, but they sell with 6 month warranties on DSLR bodies which makes it worth it to me; it's where I bought my 5D a few months ago.

Ebay can be good and cheap, but be careful.
 
K.C. Leblanc said:
The 50 1.8D won't auto focus on that body. You'll need the newer AF-S 1.8G, the 35mm 1.8 is another option.
Click to expand...

Very true, I've got the AF-S 35mm f1.8 on my D5100 and its a superb lens. Thing to note as well that due to the crop factor, the focal length on the 35mm lens is roughly 52.5mm. That means the 50mm on a nikon body like the D3100 would be approximately 85mm, which is quite important if you fancy doing portrait shots ect!

Low light photos are hard to achieve on the OPs budget though but second hand is a good bet.

For reference, the nikon AF-S 35mm f1.8 lens is around £170 new by itself.
 
Your best choice is the nikon d3100, or the pentax k-x.

You could previously get a twin lens kit pentax k-x for £400 and its a superb camera. The d3100 and k-x have low light performance that's unrivalled for the price. You need to spend a lot more for better lowlight performance.

The nikon had the edge in lens selection though. Its a shame the canon bodies around that price to me feel way cheaper and More plasticy than the d3100, because canon have a very cheap low light lens, the nifty fifty 1.8 50mm at around £95. Nikons equivalent seems more expensive.
 
They're both good cameras to start on and you can get one and a lens for your budget. I would recommend getting a kit lens before buying a 50 mm prime, which will be limiting in shooting.
 
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