[Paul M]

Hey All,
I just sold a sewing machine for a good amount of cash now looking to go dslr. Previous setup was Minolta X-700 only lens I have worth keeping is a Tamron 300 2.8 adaptall setup fit for Minolta. I can get a Nikon mount.
My sister just got the new Canon ts1 i think the new 18 meg with a 55-135. I played with it for an hour today. I liked it but felt small in my hands. I went to the local store and picked up a Nikon 7000 and a Tamron 70-200 2.8 and it felt so nice. That combo is around 2,000.00
I went to another store and checked out the Sony models 580 is a nice unit and the same sensor as the 7000. The guy at the store said there was someone making adapters to fit the md mount to the new Sony?
So my ? is go for the 7000 body $1,200.00 and just use the lens I have for now (Tamron 300 2.8 ) then get the 70-200 2.8 later down the road.
Or if I can get the Tamron 300 2.8 to adapt to the Sony 580 body. It is only 800.00 body only standard lens only 100 more. The store guy thought I might really look at that combo.
you don't get 2 SD slots like the Nikon and how important will it be down the road to write jpegs to one card and raw to another?
Never been a Canon person so not really looking at them yet.

Thank's

Paul

 

[trigger]

you don't get 2 SD slots like the Nikon and how important will it be down the road to write jpegs to one card and raw to another?

I have a D7000 myself so my advice won't be a surprise. At the moment it's just the best camera for the money, but that will change in a couple of months anyway The big brands take first place in turns. The two sd slots have several functions, you can join them to give you the maximum storage, you can use one as backup for the other. Basically every shot will be written to both cards. Or you can write raw to one slot with a big card and write jpg to the other slot with a smaller card.

It's a nice feature, but I would make that the deciding feature unless that would be the only difference.

Also the D7000 will take any Nikon lens made. Even the Af lenses without built in focus motor. That will give you a lot of possibilities to get perfect lenses second hand.

Bottom line, I am a Nikon man, so I'd go for the Nikon :dancing:

 

[Paul M]

Thank's for the advice. I'm going to be doing lots of research on this before I buy.
I thought for sure the big used camera store here locally would have the adapter I need. So i'm looking for a Tamron adaptal 2 Nikon mount. If he had one he get $15.00 for them. He said just keep checking back. Had a bunch of Minolta and canon.

Paul

 

[NorthShore]

The D7000 is state of the art. Kicks the butt of any other brand in that price range. Period. I'm not saying that because I'm a nikon guy. I'm always checking out the new bodies. Ken Rockwell, and his site is always worth a read, suggests that the D90 is the smarter way to go until you hit full frame like the D700 or D3 because it's almost the same camera for a lot less money.

 

[jason_nj]

I just bought a Sony SLT-A55 and love it. Since you already have Minolta lenses, I would check if the Sony's can use those lenses. Sony bought Minolta's camera technology and I heard Minolta lenses are interchangeable. I would look at some of the photography websites. www.dpreview.com is a good one.

Here are some shots I took with my camera. I'm not a photographer so Id just used the auto settings on the camera.

 

[Paul M]

Thank's guys
nice pics.

I was big into it with film and want to make the plunge. Loooking at keeping the Tamron 300 2.8 Test it out after I buy the body.
Not the I will do lots of editing but I like to shoot big. Thinking that if I need to turn the raw's into jpeg's and shoot alot. It would be worth the money to do it on the fly while shooting then at the computer later sorting and changing them.
Wish I could afford full frame.
These camera take the F mount w af coupling and af contacts. Not sure if the adaptall system supports those features.

Paul

 

[fmueller]

I used to be a big time Minolta manual focus shooter with over a dozen camera bodies and a wardrobe full of lenses. It's a great system for film, but it is totally incompatible with any DSLR. The Sony DSLRs are compatible with the Minolta AF system (Maxxum, Dynax), but not the old Minolta manual focus system (MD, MC, SR). There are adapters to put MD lenses on all kinds of cameras, but they all need glass, which degrades the image quality, changes the focal length, and makes the lens slow. None of that stuff is worth the short time I just spend writing about it.

If you buy a DSLR, you will need new lenses. In my opinion the same is true for the Tamron adaptall mount. Who wants to shoot an expensive DSLR and bother with manual focus and stop down metering? Sell the old stuff except for anything you are sentimentally attached to, and move on. I only kept my very first camera, a black chromium plated XD-7, and my first two lenses. Other than that I am now firmly entrenched in the Canon camp. But as others have said, all of the major systems are very good. Canon and Nikon are obviously the big boys, but Sony and Pentax are not bad either. The good part of having no usable legacy gear is that you can choose unencumbered and start with a blank slate

The reason I chose Canon was that I like the smaller Rebel bodies - unusual for somebody 6' tall with hands like shovels, but having grown up shooting the Minolta XD series, I was used to smaller bodies. The X-700 is not much larger, unless you use the MD-1. I also like to buy second hand, and found I could get by far the best deals with Canon.

The backward compatibility into the manual focus system in Nikon and Pentax in my opinion is highly overrated. Sure, you can mount all the lenses, but some features are unsupported. With some lenses on certain camera bodies you can't even meter! To call that compatible is a joke, and for me as newcomer F-mount compatibility seemed to be an incomprehensible mess. Canon is more like Minolta. There is no compatibility between AF and MF, but within these system virtually everything works with each other and every feature is supported.

I am currently shooting a Rebel T1i. Mostly for aquarium shots I have an off-camera flash system consisting of Speedlite 420ex and ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter. Lenses are:

EF-s 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM
EF-s 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM
EF 35mm f2.0
EF 50mm f1.8 II
EF 100mm f2.8 macro USM
EF 70-210mm f3.5-4.5 USM
EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 L IS USM

If I had to pick again, I would again go with Canon :thumb:

I shot virtually all photos on www.fmueller.com and www.ohiocichlid.com with my Canon set.

 

[trigger]

The Sony DSLRs are compatible with the Minolta AF system (Maxxum, Dynax)

That's because Sony never made a DSLR, but just bought Minolta

The backward compatibility into the manual focus system in Nikon and Pentax in my opinion is highly overrated. Sure, you can mount all the lenses, but some features are unsupported. With some lenses on certain camera bodies you can't even meter!

Well, with "most" lenses on "some" bodies, I was just stating the D7000 is one of the "some" bodies

And to stop this getting into a canon versus nikon bashing thread, I´ll back out. I gave my 2 cents and have nothing more to add.

 

[fmueller]

That's because Sony never made a DSLR, but just bought Minolta

I am far from being a Sony man, but that's just a tiny little unfair. Sure, Sony bought the Maxxum/Dynax system, but at the time they did that, Minolta had all of two DSLR bodies, while Nikon and Canon had a wide range of offerings. Now the Sony system is a little more competitive due to Sony releasing quite a range of DSLR bodies - none of which I am particularly familiar with.

And to stop this getting into a canon versus nikon bashing thread, I´ll back out. I gave my 2 cents and have nothing more to add.

Just for the record, I had no intend of bashing Nikon - unless you think it is Nikon bashing if I say that neither the Canon nor the Nikon system have any significant advantages over each other.

Regarding full frame, I wonder what ungodly size of enlargements people make to truly experience a significant advantage in FF over APS-C. I am very grateful for the smaller and lighter bodies and lenses. Even if I could justify the expense, there is no way I would "upgrade". The main advantage of FF in my view is for people who change over from film and want to retain the focal length of their wide angle lenses. However the need for FF has become an obsession for many casual shooters who make it sound like an APS-C camera somehow gives you only part of a photo.

I also no longer shoot RAW. The maximum resolution JPG in my camera is plenty good enough for me. Sure, RAW offers you more options to save a shot if the exposure is way off, but heck, I used to shoot slide film in a Minolta SRT and I was fine 99% of the time. Even the JPG is several orders of magnitude more forgiving, and the metering in today's cameras is way better than in a Minolta SRT. How many stops do folks under or overexpose? The disadvantages of RAW are huge file sizes and cumbersome conversion procedures. The proponents usually make light of that, claiming that any serious photographer has to to put up with those minor inconveniences. For me photography is a hobby and has to be fun. RAW took the fun out of photography for me.

Now I have given my 2c :lol:

 

[Rhinox]

So, maybe I should start a new thread for this, but I was wondering...

Ever since my wife "borrowed" "OUR" camera last week and left it at her place of work without telling me leaving me to turn the house upside down trying to find it :roll: I've been thinking I should get my own camera. I've only ever used point and shoot digital cameras, but I've been thinking lately I'd really like to take the step up to DSLR and turn photography into more of a hobby.

I was wondering, what are some good entry level DSLR's I can get started with that won't end up costing more than my cichlid hobby :lol: . I wouldn't mind a few options to research through, and I will probably look to buy used if possible. Also, anything else I might need to get started?

Just for reference, I'd have a hard time justifying a cost of more than $500 to myself let alone my better half, and if I can find something <$300 it might make a nice birthday present for me coming up in march.

Thanks, and if its a problem I'm hijacking the thread, let me know and I'll start a new one.

 

[trigger]

Just for the record, I had no intend of bashing Nikon - unless you think it is Nikon bashing if I say that neither the Canon nor the Nikon system have any significant advantages over each other.

You are actually the first Canon user I "meet" that will admit that in public

Like I said, every time one of the major brands releases a new body, it will usually out-perform the others. Pro's and con's are personal. Personally I like the heavier, more sturdy Nikon bodies. I always feel like I have nothing in my hands with Canon. But others prefer that over the heavy nikon bodies. Oh and I have a world wide Nikon pro service card, so buying anything other would be foolish for the rare case you need it

One thing though I stand by, Nikkor (yes nikkor not nikon) makes better glass than Canon in the consumer range that is. The Pro range is out of my budget anyway.

And to end the whole thing... It is YOU that makes the picture, the camera just goes "click"

Give a pro a basic camera and give me his pro camera and he will still produce better pictures than me. (but that can be my personal problem also )

 

[fmueller]

I was wondering, what are some good entry level DSLR's I can get started with that won't end up costing more than my cichlid hobby :lol: . I wouldn't mind a few options to research through, and I will probably look to buy used if possible. Also, anything else I might need to get started?

Just for reference, I'd have a hard time justifying a cost of more than $500 to myself let alone my better half, and if I can find something <$300 it might make a nice birthday present for me coming up in march.

In that price range in my opinion it's not so much what brand you buy but where you buy it, because you could well end up with somebody's irreparable junk if you got the eBay or Craigslist route. In my experience the absolutely hands-down best place to buy second hand camera gear is KEH (www.keh.com). They stand by their stuff, so if you happen to get somethign that's not working they'll make it right by you. In addition, they are pretty much the only folks in the business to underrate gear. They have a reputation of selling BGN rated stuff that's better than other people's new. I don't know how they do it, but when I was saving up for my 100-400L, I bough a couple of boxes of lenses from KEH, and sold them on eBay for a profit, until I had enough money saved for the big gun :thumb:

Since I know more about Canon models than any other DSLR, I'd say have a look at the Rebel XT for a smaller body or the 20D for something more hefty. At $235, this XT seems almost too good to miss. Ad this 18-55 IS for $133, and you got a killer starter set.

You are actually the first Canon user I "meet" that will admit that in public

Might be because at heart I am still a Minolta user - twice abandoned, first with the MD system, and then altogether

One thing though I stand by, Nikkor (yes nikkor not nikon) makes better glass than Canon in the consumer range that is. The Pro range is out of my budget anyway.

I don't know enough about current Nikon lenses to confirm or refute this, but to me consumer lenses these days are APS-C lenses, since FF is overkill for consumers IMHO. Canon's budget APS-C lenses are the 18-55 IS and the 55-250 IS. Those two are typical consumer lenses in built quality, meaning they are light weight plastic, and can't touch on the ruggedness of the L-series. But both are killer lenses optically and very well respected. If the Nikon counterparts were sharper, I doubt the difference could be large enough to matter for any consumer application. I also don't know how anybody could beat the price of about $170 and $250, respectively. B&H sells the imported version of the 18-55 IS for $130, and that lens has the very latest technology of a 3-4 stop IS system. Compare that to some L lenses where the markup for having IS in the lens is $400-$500!

In short, I don't think any of the big guys can afford to have bad consumer lenses on the market anymore, seeing how competitive the business is.

 

[NorthShore]

Brand is irrelevant these days, really. Nikon had a bit of an edge in aquarium photography with commander mode but I do believe Canon now has their own wireless remote flash triggering system in the 7d model. Canon held an edge with their CMOS sensors until Nikon finally moved away from ccd sensors and designed a pretty darn good cmos sensor themselves.

Photography is still about knowing what you want to end up with as an image and knowing how to use the gear to produce that image.

I will always recommend that anyone serious about a dslr go into a camera shop and handle different cameras in your price range. Canons felt a little small in my hands so I went with Nikon. Once you know which model you want, then go shopping for price.

I have seen guys win photo contests on this site with point n' shoot cameras. Some of the best aquatic photographers on the net use some of the most basic gear and camera bodies. You might be surprised.

While it might not surprise you that Aquamojo uses a nikon D3, it might surprise you that AQUASAUR still shoots with a canon 50d. Another member here by the name of RAFAL has won several photo contests here and on the net using a Sony point n' shoot camera.

Gear is only one part of the equation.

 

[jason_nj]

Like I stated in my previous post, I'm not a photography expert in fact I would say I know nothing about photography. I'm starting to learn and I own the Sony SLT-A55 and love it so far.

Here is a direct comparison review on the Sony SLT-a55, Canan T2i and the Nikon D90. Hopefully it's helpful. I was actually undecided between the Canon T2i and the Sony SLT-a55 and this review sold me on the Sony.

http://www.digitalphotographywriter.com ... n-d90.html

 

[Rhinox]

fmueller

Thanks for the info I'll definitely be spending some time looking around that site tomorrow. I originally had craigslist in mind, but what are some of the things to watch out for as far as "irreparable junk" goes? for example, something like...

http://cleveland.craigslist.org/ele/2179479105.html maybe looks like a deal?

I've been playing around with the controls on my point and shoot its a cannon powershot SD1100 IS but it seems all my pics come out grainy or blurred, its tough to get a nice shot of fish that don't sit still with this thing and the flash completely washes out the fish. Without flash, very hard to get a clear shot. Easier to take video with it and either just post the video or screen cap a nice shot from the vid :-?

 

[fmueller]

http://cleveland.craigslist.org/ele/2179479105.html maybe looks like a deal?

With 10.1MP it's either a XTi or XS. With the 18-55Is lens, it should sell for about $300-$400. If the offer to sell it for $160 is real, it's not a deal, it's a steal. But if something sounds too good to be true, it very often is! You might find this article of some interest.

Personally, I would be wary about buying a second hand DSLR from a private party. I've taken photos for about as long as I had fish, and I've traded with film SLRs for many years as a hobby. I can check out a Minolta SRT in a few minutes and tell if it's top or flop. Same is true for a X-700, which has a lot more electronics. But DSLRs have so many features that I could never say if the thing works properly without having shot with it for a few days. If you buy from a reputable store - B&H, Adorama, KEH, Amazon - and you find out after a few days that there is a problem, they'll refund your money or send you another camera. With KEH I know that this works even for bargain rated second hand gear, because I've gone with them through that process.

 

[Paul M]

http://cleveland.craigslist.org/ele/2179479105.html maybe looks like a deal?

With 10.1MP it's either a XTi or XS. With the 18-55Is lens, it should sell for about $300-$400. If the offer to sell it for $160 is real, it's not a deal, it's a steal. But if something sounds too good to be true, it very often is! You might find this article of some interest.

Personally, I would be wary about buying a second hand DSLR from a private party. I've taken photos for about as long as I had fish, and I've traded with film SLRs for many years as a hobby. I can check out a Minolta SRT in a few minutes and tell if it's top or flop. Same is true for a X-700, which has a lot more electronics. But DSLRs have so many features that I could never say if the thing works properly without having shot with it for a few days. If you buy from a reputable store - B&H, Adorama, KEH, Amazon - and you find out after a few days that there is a problem, they'll refund your money or send you another camera. With KEH I know that this works even for bargain rated second hand gear, because I've gone with them through that process.

Thats what I was shooting. The X700.
Thank's for the info.

Paul

 

[Paul M]

Just picked up a nikon adaptall 2 mount for myTamron 300 2.8 i'm going to check it out tonight on a D7000
If you would like an adapter he has a bunch of them.

Paul

 

[HelenOster]

......If you buy from a reputable store - B&H, Adorama, KEH, Amazon - and you find out after a few days that there is a problem, they'll refund your money or send you another camera......

With Adorama you have a 90-day warranty on all used items, which includes a 30 day returns period if you simply change your mind!

 

[fmueller]

With Adorama you have a 90-day warranty on all used items, which includes a 30 day returns period if you simply change your mind!

Helen - welcome to CF! I believe I know you from Photo.net. You work as a representative for Adorama, right? I hope you were pleased to find Adorama on my short list of highly recommended online camera stores. The service Adorama provides, extending all the way to monitoring these kind of forums for feedback, is highly appreciated. That said, strictly speaking advertising on CF is only allowed for site sponsors, but we hope to see you come back and bring some photo advice to the cichlid world :thumb:

Are you keeping fish yourself by any chance?