Have £300-400 to spend, advice for a beginner please!

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Soldato
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So for my 21st, my grandparents have offered to spend £300-400 on a digital camera for me. I'm not a photographer, although I'm about to graduate from studying Media Technology where we have studied analogue and digital photography way back in the first year. So i know the basics, and tbh it was a subject i quite enjoyed. I like the idea of playing about with depth of field etc. :)

So, anyway. I'm pretty clueless! They had the idea that i'd want a 'serious' kinda camera (i.e. a dslr) whcih i'm quite keen on, although i'm not sure if £3-400 is enough. :confused:

Secondly i'm kinda having doubts on whether i'd get the use out of a dslr, i can see myself getting a flash dslr then ending up never going out to use it properly, whereas a compact would be easy to get use out of (i.e. take it everywhere!). Any thoughts on that? Maybe any dslr's that are smaller?

So i've done some research and i guess i need to choose between a compact or a dslr? Am i right? What kind of dslr could i get for that money? :confused:

Any advice and suggestions appreciated!
 
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As a compromise you could try something along the lines of a Sony DSC-H1.

For your budget you could get the camera, decent sized memory stick and one or two conversion lenses.

Check out dpreview.com for reviews and the forum there for user opinions.
 
Thanks. My grandparents actually live in NZ and theyre gonna send it back with my mum after her trip, so second hand deals probably wouldnt work :p

But um, i did a bit of googling and the Fuji Finepix series seems to rate well, the S9500 or S7000 look interesting, although the price seems to vary a lot. Are there any store links you guys can post (without breaking rules here!) to give me an affirmative price for some of these?

Thanks for the link, King4aDay.
 
*shameless bump*

I'm still looking for advice here. I think i'm set on getting a dSLR and not a compact if that helps. I've been looking at the Nikon D50, Fuji 5600 and 9500 (probably out of my range). Really just looking for as many manual features and options as possible. :)
 
Scam said:
*shameless bump*

I'm still looking for advice here. I think i'm set on getting a dSLR and not a compact Nikon D50, Fuji 5600 and 9500 :)
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The two Fuji's you mention are not DSLR's. The D50 is the cheapest DSLR at the moment I think, can be had for around £425. Bear in mind that all DSLR's are bulky and not the sort of thing you will want to carry all the time. The Sony DSC-H1 as mentioned in a previous post is a great camera, but also look at the H2 and H5 which are due in April I think. Whatever you choose make sure to handle it before you buy.
 
Hmn this is confusing! So the Fujis and that Sony one are 'SLR-like'? Correct? What exactly does that mean, besides the slightly more attractive price?
 
Just buy a digital SLR. You can pick up a new Nikon D50 for £400 now with lens, or even an Olympus model. With secondhand the world is almost your oyster, but tbh, I'd by brand new due to shutter wear etc... You can begin to use an SLR with auto modes which is pretty foolproof, and as you develop your ability you can begin to interact with the camera further.

If you buy a SLR style compact, you'll not necessarily save that much money, and you'll probably lose loads when you sell it because you need to scratch the 'I want a digital SLR' itch!

Oh, and the SLR 'style' compacts are generally nothing on a proper SLR. I have a Kodak DX6490 which is a pretty good compact SLR style, which I've had since Christmas, and I already want a digital SLR (I did after about a week)!

If you must buy a compact, I'd get something cheap to tide you by, and save the rest of the money. If you really get into digital photography you can use that saved money to put towards a digital SLR, and get something you really want.

The only drawback with the SLR route is the cost of the lenses, whereas a compact has normally got a lens with a very wide range of focal lengths, thus negating the need for another/loads more lenses.
 
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danza said:
If you buy a SLR style compact, you'll not necessarily save that much money, and you'll probably lose loads when you sell it because you need to scratch the 'I want a digital SLR' itch!
Click to expand...

He speaks the truth, about 6 - 8 months ago I bought a fujifilm s5500, spent about £250 including batteries, memory card, and all the other stuff... It's been great and i've taken about 6,500 pictures, but now I'm after a dSLR which is probabaly gonna cost me £500 or so...

The S9500 or S7000 are probably pretty decent, but if you're going to spend that much money, just pay a little bit more and go for the dSLR, as if you stick with it, it'll save you an expensive upgrade, and if you don't, the dSLRs don't seem to loose too much of their value compared to compact cameras when second hand. Although if you've already enjoyed various aspects of it, I doubt you'd want to sell it anyway :)
 
Thanks, the Nikon D50 seems to be a nice camera according to dpreview.com anyway. Any other review sites out there that i should take a look out?

So the D50 is the cheapest out there? Any other potentials i could consider? I shall try and get into town and see if i can mess about with one in a store if possible.

Thanks for the advice.
 
There's the Olympus E300 kit also to be had at your price point. I'm not sure how this camera compares to the Nikon though. The Olympus has an 8 megapixel sensor, whereas the Nikon is 6.1. The Olympus is available through a large high street retailer for £400 with lens.
 
You might want to consider looking for a second hand 10d, theres one now for £310.99 with 16 minutes left (i'm a bit tempted myself). But I *think* i've decided on a 350d

Edit: Just gone for £349.00
 
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Hmmmm, I'd probably avoid second hand, as you've no warranty, and you can't tell how many times the shutter has been operated. If the shutter gives up, it is expensive to put right. This happened to cyKey's 20D the other week and cost was ~£200 to put right!
 
Thanks for the advice. My grandparents have emailed me saying its possible to transfer the money if i wanted to try to buy something over here, so i guess second hand is an option now. Do high street stores generally sell second hand stuff? In fact how trustworthy are any high street stores.. coming from a PC/hardware background its never occured to me to go into the big purple shop or anything (always online!). Is it 'safer' in the photography world? :p
 
Would it be possible to save some of the money they send? If so, as you are new to digital photography, I would suggest buying a quality compact such as the Canon A620, for around £200. Or the cheaper A610.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canona620/

Then after a year or so, if you get the bug, use the money you saved to put towards a digital SLR,
keeping the compact as your carry around camera. :)
 
Hmn, its tough to gauge really. I wouldnt class myself as 'new' to photography, i'm comfortable with most technical aspects of it from doing analogue and digital photography in my first year at Uni, and i've produced a fair few videos and done cinematography etc. which obviously uses some of the same principles. I kinda think if i got a point-and-shoot i'd just sit back and use it as that. If i got a dSLR i'd go out and make something of it. Make sense? :p

Gah i dunno :confused: :D

Off into town later today to have a looky round the shops.
 
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