New and wondering


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kevyan

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Jan 5, 2005
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Hi all, my name is Kevin. I am new here. Begining to have an interest in photography.

Need some advice from all of you. Most likely, I will be learning some basic photography from my friend, but he recommened me to buy Canon EOS 300D if I have no budget constraint. But the fact is, I do have budget contraint.

So, I need to know, for a beginner like me, really a beginner beginner, should I get a SLR or DSLR?

What are the things am I getting myself into? Time/money or what?

I think this is an expensive hobby. But I just like to capture nice pictures.

Please help. Thank you very much.
 

i think you should try SLR first. It is much cheaper than DLSR to startup. Otherwise a 300D is also a good choice provided you have the moolas for it. You'll be buying more than the camera you know. There is the lens and other accessories that will kill ya. I know some will disagree with me but I am talking about startup cost.
 

jbma said:
i think you should try SLR first. It is much cheaper than DLSR to startup. Otherwise a 300D is also a good choice provided you have the moolas for it. You'll be buying more than the camera you know. There is the lens and other accessories that will kill ya. I know some will disagree with me but I am talking about startup cost.

I have to disagree. You can get a used 300D body for about $1000 and if you start with a film SLR it will still be around $200-$300 for a body. The big costs will be in the lenses, which be the same whether you use film or digital. If you want to learn the ropes of photography quickly, digital will be a lot cheaper than film. For film, each roll of 36 you shoot, develop and print will cost you a minimum of $10. With digital, shooting costs are "practically" free. Don't like the pics? Just delete!

I shot with a film SLR for more than 10 years and learnt very little along the way, and so did not have very much interest in photography. Now having first bought a digital point and shoot, and then a DSLR, my interest in photography has really taken light and I've learnt a lot more in 18 months of shooting digital than 10 years of film.

If you are starting out now and want to learn photography, shoot DIGITAL, no question about it.

Cheers,
 

dkw said:
I have to disagree. You can get a used 300D body for about $1000 and if you start with a film SLR it will still be around $200-$300 for a body. The big costs will be in the lenses, which be the same whether you use film or digital. If you want to learn the ropes of photography quickly, digital will be a lot cheaper than film. For film, each roll of 36 you shoot, develop and print will cost you a minimum of $10. With digital, shooting costs are "practically" free. Don't like the pics? Just delete!

I shot with a film SLR for more than 10 years and learnt very little along the way, and so did not have very much interest in photography. Now having first bought a digital point and shoot, and then a DSLR, my interest in photography has really taken light and I've learnt a lot more in 18 months of shooting digital than 10 years of film.

If you are starting out now and want to learn photography, shoot DIGITAL, no question about it.

Cheers,

I disagrees with you. I had shot with a film SLR for more then 15 years and still learning new tricks. The DSLR is a good boon, but then to fully appreciate photography it is still back to flim. Composition, Lightings makes a part of it.

For Don't like the picture, just delete clause, well, you will learn to rely too much on the body and too little on your own creativities. For film, I learn every shots counts. For digital I just need to take 100 pictures and in the end having 10 good pictures.

The basics is still film. If you can take film pictures, Digital is a breeze. If you can take Digital pictures, it does not mean you can take pictures with flims.
 

I am thinking of getting the Nikon F75.

RECOMMENDED RETAIL PRICE : SIN$699 WITH AF 28-80mm f3.5-5.6G LEN

Any comment or advice on it?
 

I think you might be better off with a Minolta Dynax 60 or a Dynax 5 with a Tokina 28-70 f/2.8 lens with similar budget.

The body does not really matter much in this sense, other then the fact Minolta body has High Speed Sync 1/2000 and some other functions not found in Nikon bodies. The lenses are often the deciding factor on how good your photographs turn out. Tokina 28-70 f/2.8 lens is a very good lens that is very cheap.

Consider that option.
 

Okay, not I am confused. Some tell me to buy SLR, some said DSLR.

SLR, spend more developing the picture. Do not get to know your mistake instantly.

DSLR, instantly see you shots, know how you fare and make correction. But DSLR cost a bomb for my pocket.

I need some enlightenment.

Call John 3:16 Photo, they recommend Nikon F55, Canon 3000V and 66 for beginners.

My budget is only $600+. Please help. Thank you.
 

kevyan said:
Okay, not I am confused. Some tell me to buy SLR, some said DSLR.

SLR, spend more developing the picture. Do not get to know your mistake instantly.

DSLR, instantly see you shots, know how you fare and make correction. But DSLR cost a bomb for my pocket.

I need some enlightenment.

Call John 3:16 Photo, they recommend Nikon F55, Canon 3000V and 66 for beginners.

My budget is only $600+. Please help. Thank you.

Hi.my name is Andrew. firstly.. i would like to welcome u on board..Clubsnap is a very gd plc for u to learn n gain knowledge..there is many pros ard to asst you..all of them r kind and willing to teach.. :D

for dat budget, u can try nikon F80 (if u really like nikon brand)
i started off wif SLR too abt few years back..n still like to use it for my freelance work.. DSLR cost lot more than ur budget..if u were not constrian by cash, then no harm to get yourself a DSLR..

Do some reserach if you free..dont buy anytin in a hush..u may end up regret.

Cheers! :D

Andrew
 

blurblock said:
I disagrees with you. I had shot with a film SLR for more then 15 years and still learning new tricks. The DSLR is a good boon, but then to fully appreciate photography it is still back to flim. Composition, Lightings makes a part of it..

Hi BB, I guess now I know why you sold your 10D to me :) . I still have it by the way and I think its a great cam, has contributed significantly to my development in photography. I guess we agree to disagree then. As I have mentioned in many previous posts, a lot of how people view this issue depends on the type of background you come from. Those who have shot a lot of film in the past and have reached a certain level of proficiency will invariably tout film as the way to go. For newbies like myself who have shot a little bit of film and now have hit digital in a big way, I can tell you, its like night and day, digital wins hands down as a quick way to learn photographic technique, NO CONTEST!

blurblock said:
I For Don't like the picture, just delete clause, well, you will learn to rely too much on the body and too little on your own creativities. For film, I learn every shots counts. For digital I just need to take 100 pictures and in the end having 10 good pictures..

I'd rather not mess around with the technical issues and focus on composition. If it takes me 100 shots at first to get 10 keepers, with instant review, I will soon learn and will come down to 20 shots to get 10 keepers. It's already happening to me after about 1 year of shooting DSLR, I'm taking a lot less shots than before, because my technique has improved so quickly. With film, I never knew what the problem was with my bad shots and I simply made the same mistake again the next time, so I still get my 3 keepers per roll of 36, every time.

Lesson 1: Don't underestimate the power of instant review as an educational tool.

The other tool I found most useful is the histogram. Sometimes you can talk to a newbie till you are blue in the face about exposure and he still won't *get it*. When I saw my first histogram on my P&S a light bulb just lit up in my mind. Up till then exposure was a nebulous concept, my finally I could visualise how my picture was exposing. Big important conceptual jump.

Also, the advent of PS has also been a boon to improving compositional skills. How many folk are comfortable using a darkroom to try and crop, dodge etc? A lot less than those comfortable using PS to do the same I'll bet. You learn a lot by post-processing, so the next time you go out and shoot you remember to frame better, expose better, use a filter etc. It is an iterative process.

Lesson 2: You as much about composition in front of the computer as you do behind the viewfinder.

To you experienced film users to whom these techniques/concepts are old hat, you have perhaps forgotten the kind of pain you had to endure to learn them. You fail to see how important/useful these short-cuts are in learning photography.

blurblock said:
The basics is still film. If you can take film pictures, Digital is a breeze. If you can take Digital pictures, it does not mean you can take pictures with flims.

By implication, you are saying shooting film is a technically more demanding exercise. To me, the end result is the key. If you can accomplish the same result with either medium, why take the more difficult route? If I can get good results with digital, why on earth would I want to shoot film? I put it to you that shooting digital will also improve your film photography. A couple of weeks ago I picked up my Dad's old Nikon SLR, the one I had been using for over 10 years, and shot a small indoor function that was happening using a single pin flash and a card-board bouncer. I haven't seen the results yet, but I think they will not be too bad, bacause I have shot over 1000 frames on digital experimenting with different cam settings, flash settings, bounce angles etc, all for free (didn't print a single shot and deleted most of them). 12 or even 6 months ago I would never even have had the confidence to try flash photography on an SLR.

Lesson 3: Shooting for free removes a great impediment to learning.

Sorry for a long post, as is my usual style.

Cheers and take care,
 

Hi. I started with a film camera and I'm still using one. It's not that I don't like digital. It's just beyond my reach.

Knowing your budget helps. DSLRs are good and all but if your budget does not permit it then you don't have a choice but to go with film. I do agree though that digital will enable you to learn faster since you can shoot more often.

There's a downside to getting an expensive machine right away. You discover that you don't really like photography and your expensive setup will just go underutilized. I have friends you bought SLRs when they saw how much fun I was having but now I seldom see them use their cameras. When I ask them to show me some of their shots they can't even show me a single print. They don't really have the passion for it.

I have another friend who keeps promising to himself he'll go out and shoot once he gets a macro lens for his D70 because macro is his interest. Months later after he bought one he still hasn't shown me a single macro shot.

Keep your equipment simple at first. One body + one lens. Keep shooting with that. Find out if you really have the passion. Your decisions about equipment will come naturally as your skills and interest grow.

On the specifics of equipment F55 and EOS66 are really old models. For the price of a brand new F55 or EOS66 you're better off looking at the posts in the buy and sell subforum.
 

Well, just to share with all. I am currently using a digital camera -- Sony DSP-P72, simple digital camera to take normal shots.

My interest in photography has been around for sometime, but it is because of $$$ issue that stop me. I had play around with the Sony camera for sometime, but this camera has it's limitation. Setting is quite fix.

One thing for sure is that I cannot afford a DSLR. My take home pay is only about $1.1K, getting married soon, meaning more $$$ will be flowing out.

I hope to learn my about photography is because of interest and also in hope that I can be a freelance photographer to earn for a living too.

But as for now, I can only afford the budget of around $600+ for everything.
(Body, lens, cleaning kit, and hopefully a decent tripod). But I guess it is quite difficult.

That is why I need advice from pros like you guys.
 

Bleah...
Some say SLR, some say DSLR. Just go with your heart.

The bottom line is, invest in the lens, then the body. Not the other way round.
 

kevyan said:
I hope to learn my about photography is because of interest and also in hope that I can be a freelance photographer to earn for a living too.

But as for now, I can only afford the budget of around $600+ for everything.
(Body, lens, cleaning kit, and hopefully a decent tripod). But I guess it is quite difficult.

That is why I need advice from pros like you guys.

I'm not pro. Just hobbyist.

It's a different matter if you want photography to be a source of income instead of just a hobby. Most freelancers nowadays use DSLRs.
 

It will be expensive if you go the slr/dslr route because then you really have the tendency for buy buy buy syndrome to upgrade lense, flash, tripod, cf card and what-nots. Even if you do not have money, you will make the money... just to BBB.

If you're just beginning to have a feel on photography, I'd advise against plunging hard-earned cash into the slr/dslr road. You don't need a slr to learn BASIC photography. Go for the much recommended Canon A series (or any other), as long as it's photography, the same BASICS still apply. And have fun with your friends at the same time. Would you want to be the designated photographer of the gang with a humongous slr in hand or a chic digi-compact that lets you have join in the fun and let someone else take pictures for a while. A lot of CSers here are not using slrs and are churning out pretty good results, think about it.
 

oh. posted before you last msg. hehe
 

kevyan said:
Well, just to share with all. I am currently using a digital camera -- Sony DSP-P72, simple digital camera to take normal shots.

My interest in photography has been around for sometime, but it is because of $$$ issue that stop me. I had play around with the Sony camera for sometime, but this camera has it's limitation. Setting is quite fix.

One thing for sure is that I cannot afford a DSLR. My take home pay is only about $1.1K, getting married soon, meaning more $$$ will be flowing out.

I hope to learn my about photography is because of interest and also in hope that I can be a freelance photographer to earn for a living too.

But as for now, I can only afford the budget of around $600+ for everything.
(Body, lens, cleaning kit, and hopefully a decent tripod). But I guess it is quite difficult.

That is why I need advice from pros like you guys.
If your budget is constrained, then I'd suggest go the SLR route... Get a cheap, good and reliable film SLR, be it new or 2nd hand and run a roll of film a week or something. Yes it'll take longer to see the pictures, but at least you can get what you want - More control over your photography. Besides a film SLR, get a ok lens (The others can advise you on this) and a decent tripod (Those normal aluminium ones will do for now). With any spare change, buy as many rolls of film as you can or you could use it to save it up for your wedding.

It doesn't matter which route you take, be it film or digital, because at the end its really the picture that matters. A better camera makes the process of making the picture a whole lot more convinient. A lot of people say go DSLR, but since your budget doesn't really permit, then I suggest not to go that route first. Stick with film then when the budget permits, go the DSLR route. Honestly, I am always humbled by people who make stunning pictures with the simplest of cameras and lenses. It makes me think, 'Really the camera doesn't take the picture, its the person behind the viewfinder.' Well, its a rather hard lesson learnt after all the money spent but oh well.. :)

I wish you the best of luck for what ever you'll be doing and getting. ;)

Regards,
Nick
 

kevyan said:
:)

Hi all, my name is Kevin. I am new here. Begining to have an interest in photography.

Need some advice from all of you. Most likely, I will be learning some basic photography from my friend, but he recommened me to buy Canon EOS 300D if I have no budget constraint. But the fact is, I do have budget contraint.

So, I need to know, for a beginner like me, really a beginner beginner, should I get a SLR or DSLR?

What are the things am I getting myself into? Time/money or what?

I think this is an expensive hobby. But I just like to capture nice pictures.

Please help. Thank you very much.


Film=cost of trial and error film processing is high $$$$$.
Dslr= beyond reach

Best bet is you get a digital camera with MANUAL settings like the canon budget series, whatever and play around with it. Or some 2nd hand prosumer cam, like fuji 602 and canon g1, g2, olympus 3020, 3040 4040, etc whatever the which i saw here, pretty good to grow up with. Meddle with the ISP, F stops, Aperature, Speed, etc and learn.
Expensive? Nah. I feel ur ur really good, you can still make excellent pics with any cam.
 

You have to prioritise yourself then. I don't think it's that easy to freelance, though I'm no expert. I feel your photography thing should take a backseat for now. Let life settle first before making the leap.
 

foxtwo said:
You have to prioritise yourself then. I don't think it's that easy to freelance, though I'm no expert. I feel your photography thing should take a backseat for now. Let life settle first before making the leap.

This is good advice.
 

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