New DSLR thoughts and decisions

Damnations Fury

Damnations Fury

Damnations Fury

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,108
Location
Nottingham
Hi,

Ive just got back from trying some DSLR's and i'm currently really undecided what to do. At the moment I own a Panasonic Fz7, it's a great small (ish) longzoom camera, but to an extent I feel it's limiting me a little. First i've already now fallen in love with focus rings on lenses, they are so much better than the focus I am used to. Second im not 100% happy with even the daylight quality of some of the photos i get, they can look a little blotchy like they are painted at 100%, even when camera processing is set to minimum. Finally and maybe most importantly i've found that i've been taking a fair amount of pictures in less that optimal lighting coniditons, not as such at night, but a lot once the light is starting to fade, and this camera in particular suffers from bad noise so thats not great.

Anyway my plan seems to be to sell the fz7, pick up a DSLR now or soon, and then get a compact camra in the future for situatuions where i just need something in my pocket (something like an a610) as these situatuions are usually just taking pics of friends etc, so no zoom really required.

Sadly I havent got the cash to go up to something like the D20/30, so after getting a second lense im looking probablky between a 350d, d50 or a scond hand d70. With any of these im not going to have much left for telephoto lense but after looking around the Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro Lens seems like it will do to start off with as I can live with jsut using it up to 250-270 to keep the sharpness up a little. Myy problem is that i dont know which of these 3 cameras to go for. The 350d definately has the best feature set, but after holding it, I found it instantly a little uncomfortable to hold (as many have reported). To be fair the more I held it the more I go t used to it, but the d50 felt great from the off, jsut the perfect size, the 350d wasnt even close. The question is, how much would I be loosing feature wise? The price of it's great too. While I havent held the d70s, how much is this lacking in features compared to the 350d? Is it worth the extra over the d50 considering I would want the standard kit lense with both of them?

Any help would be much appreciated as all im thinking at the moment is that I wish the grip on the 350d was a little bigger.
 
its all personal preference really, the cameras youve looked at are all good, and i think you would be happy with any of them.
But I would go on other things like the feels/hold of it, does it feel right?
Is it easy to use? any annoying chartacteristics?
also I think the market for 2nd hand Canon gear seems to be the biggest at the moment, maybe you could get cheaper lenses, etc
 
Hold of getting the Pentax as the new models are due to arrive in August, which aparently are going to be real nice.

I just got myself a Nikon D50 which I am really happy with. Excelent colour reproduction, easy to navigate/use menu options. I was looking at the Pentax *ist which felt really nice but when I was shopping around I forced the salesman to allow me to compare picture quality on their pc and the D50 edged it just slightly.

The 350D is by all means a nice camera but I found it a little pricey. My godfather uses one and he is over the moon with it.

In in the end its down to personel preference.

King.

EDIT: The Samsung is the Pentax, your paying for the label.
 
The Nikon D50 looks to be a great camera at the price, a mate got one recently and he's delighted with it.
 
I made a similar move last nov from the lumix FZ20
went for the 350D over the D50 or D70 because of the feel of the camera, the ease with which I can get lenses and kit for it and also some mates have canon kit so it's more fun to switch and match kit
my reasons were not due to the nikon being an inferior product
having said that I'm a much bigger fan of canon lenses over nikkor ones, or maybe the nikon based lenses I've seen are just the dinky cheap ones..??
 
Im beginning to lean towards the 350d now, but I just want to ask people with 350d's, did any of you initially find the camera uncomfortable, but get used to it over time?

The other thing is that the new Pentax K100d looks promissing, but information on the pentax lenses (and getting hold of them in general) seems a lot more difficult to find. Can anyone give any opinions on pentax DSLR's and their lenses?
 
Last edited:
Check out the Pentax SLR forum at dpreview but bear in mind they are obviously all Pentax fans. I have been wondering about a Pentax SLR recently as well as they are going cheap before the new bodies are launched but not sure if I can justify the money. They seem to get good reviews for what they are. As always when you go away from Canon/Nikon you are buying into a reduced range of bodies and lenses. However, do you need to be able to buy a £100,000 Pro body and a 6000mm f0.003 lens? One attraction of the Pentax for me is that it seems to work well with old Pentax lenses and there are a huge stock of these going second hand. The viewfinder is supposed to be much better on the pentax and the build quality sounds better than the low level Canon/Nikon.

There is also the question of whether the old optical companies like Pentax will stay in the market now that cameras are electronic items. Pentax is about to launch two new low price bodies and a higher spec one maybe later this year? Obviously now they are linked to Samsung maybe they will do like KM and sell off their camera division in the future.
 
That was my though to be honest, the K100d looks quite promissing, would prefer to see a review first, but ive seen it suggested that it will be available from the 17th from one store.
 
Hmmm, after a look on DPReview, it seems odd to me that the K100D and K110D only go down to ISO 200? Strange that. :confused:
 
Damnations Fury said:
Im beginning to lean towards the 350d now, but I just want to ask people with 350d's, did any of you initially find the camera uncomfortable, but get used to it over time?
Click to expand...

Never really found my 350D uncomfortable, although I did find that due to the small size, my little finger on my right hand never really had anywhere to grip onto properly.

After buying the battery grip, which added another 1.5cm or so of grip space, it felt much better. The grip also adds a bit of weight which helps with larger lenses.

I wouldn't want to put up with using my 70-200mm without the grip.

:)
 
Ive never heard any complaints from Nikon owning friends, only small issue is sometimes JPGs arent as good as they could be so RAW is the way to go.

R.
 
Dont forget the Olympus E500. Its in the same range as the d50/350d and is better in some ways, worse in others. I preferred it to either when I held it, it feels amazing to hold, but the viewing lens is a little smaller. I preferred the layout of controls and the great lcd. Not to mention it is a four thirds cam. It is a worthy choice to consider.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom