Offered a 500d body - first dive into DSLR: Help required

phatboy

phatboy

phatboy

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Hi all,

I have always fancied a DSLR camera and have done the whole learning before buying spending thing and bought a Nikon D110 Bridge a few years back to start and attended a composition course at Colchester castle + have gone through books.

I have been offered a good condition 500d body with battery, charger and a few bits but no lens for £100....is that a sensible price to start with?

My knowledge of lens etc isn't great atm and I am just wondered if its going to be a huge outlay to get one to get me started? I am looking at doing this on a budget first and foremost

Any help is as always on here to you guys and girls greatly appreciated

Thanks

Ben
 
That's not a bad price and the 500d is still a decent camera.

I wouldn't skip on a lens personally but if you are just starting out then you are going to need something that gives you a complete focal range from wide to telephoto.

The Tamron 18-200 is a good starter lens for £169..
http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-tamron-18-200mm-f3-5-6-3-di-ii-vc-lens-canon/p1579069

It's even got image stabilisation which will help compensate for it's speed.
 
Ouch....That sounds pretty expensive, but I guess tbh the DSLR game isn't a cheap one

Right I had better look into lens...
 
£169 for a lens is cheap.

In 2014 I bought a cheap DSLR and lens for £150 from here.

2 years later and my camera bag is filled with:
£600 - 2nd hand Canon 5D2
£550 - Tamron 15-30 2.8
£1200 - Sigma 150-600 Sport
£150 worth of CF cards
£70 of extra batteries
£90 tripod
£45 - BlackRapid strap
Plus a few hundred of misc bits and bobs

It is a slippery slope....
 
Thak you so much for all the replies. Really great

Slightly off topic. If it was cheap enough would a 350d or 20d be a half decent entry to dslr still by any chance. Just found a few packages with grip, 2 batteries and charger and 11-55 lens on ebay

I know they are compact flash driven units rather than sd....my knowledge is so limited here lol
 
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Take the 500d for £100, while a 350d or 20d are more than capable of producing nice images a 500d has some of the more modern and user friendly features and will be generally easier to use.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
if you are just starting out then you are going to need something that gives you a complete focal range from wide to telephoto.
Click to expand...

Other may disagree, but I find a good prime lens allows a beginner to think about more important things than twisting the zoom ring, and gives better optics quality and thus IQ.

Allows you to develop a better eye for composition, plus the lenses are faster so better for low light work and able to give good bokeh shots from their depth of field. Hard to get that with what would be a cheap short range telephoto kits lens.
 
So looks like I am getting the camera body and now just looking in to lenses correctly

Is a 35-80mm going to be of no use? found a genuine Canon one for good money

Also found a sigma 18-55 AF for £29.99 and free delivery......good deal?
 
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