advertisement


El Cheapo Digital

Jonathan Ribee

Jonathan Ribee

Unavailable at present
I have not had a camera since I got my boy scouts photography badge with my trusty box brownie far too many years ago*. I also only own about a half dozen printed photographic images. I tend to try an maximise my particpation in events rather than worry about generating proof.

However.

I quite like the idea of taking pictures for the sake of taking pictures. I quite like trees. I can see me taking pictures of trees. But not birds, unless they just happen be in the trees.

Also - as I will shortly be "iMaced up" and be part of the digital image revolution - I can post stuff in the system picture thread and expose the innards of my amplifiers to the cognoscenti.

As I know nothing about the relative merits of varying degrees of mega-pixels, shake, face recognition etc - can anyone suggest a start?

Cheers,
Jonathan

*My two "seventy-five years of scouting" mugs are now 26 years old. Which is scary.
 
jonathan.

pentax is the best bet at entry level. they are also excellent higher up (as matthew can explain). here's a review i wrote a couple of years ago (and is still relevant):
http://photo.net/equipment/pentax/istds/

here are some trees shot with the istD2 version this winter:

http://vukfoto.com/exhib/snow_trees/
http://vukfoto.com/exhib/branches/

and, of course, this from last the fall of 2006:
http://vukfoto.com/g09/IMGP0900-01_cartoon_tree.htm


i may actually be selling to upgrade (contact me if interested).

vuk.
 
kasperhauser said:
Corollary question: Is anything short of a DSLR considered "not really digital", "not really a camera", etc.?
Click to expand...

kasper.

you have to be a really, really good photographer to consistently take good pictures with any of the "compact" cameras out there. not because of the image quality, but because you can't visualise the shot properly. if you can be bothered, read the review i've linked to and it may make more sense.

in terms of final quality, there is an issue as well in that, on an SRL, you have larger sensors (with larger, less noisy pixels, not necessarily more) and most importantly can mount better lenses.

finally, when a camera is too small, you end up looking like a girle or one of those huys who were fanny packs.

vuk.
 
Jonathan Ribee said:
As I know nothing about the relative merits of varying degrees of mega-pixels, shake, face recognition etc - can anyone suggest a start?
Click to expand...

Megapixels and tomfoolery are nothing compared to sensor sensitivity and the glass in the lens

Leica make the best glass lenses and Fuji or Kodak make the best sensors, but Sony are catching up big style.

In the pocketable £200 bracket I'd choose Panasonic / Leica. In the £500 - £1k bracket I agree with Vuk about the Pentax stuff. My own kit is a mix of Nikon, Leica and Fuji with Panasonic / lumix for holiday snaps.

Cliff

PS I also have an Olympus OM4ti for "real" film
 
Thanks Gents

OK - the KD20 seems a bit much for someone who has no idea how much he will use the thing yet, and just wants to play.

Looking at the spec for the *is tds (which seems to be no longer available) and trying to compare with a current Pentax - does that Pentax K100D seem sensible?

£280 for one with a basic 18-55mm lens avalable in the UK. Which is a lot less than I thought I'd have to invest. Pentax K mount for lenses.

Seems to good to be true?
 
The K100D is not bad at all, and cheap nowadays. It's also quite small, so easy to carry around.

-- Ian
 
ian.

aren't you looking to sell yours? this would be convenient for the two of you.


vuk.
 
I've decided I might as well keep it as my "serious" digicam until it dies, I occasionally shoot a bit of colour, and now it's an end-of-line model even new ones are dirt cheap, so it's not really worth selling.

-- Ian
 
One thing to bear in mind is that Vuk has a bit of an obsession with older Pentax lenses, so the main reason he thinks Pentax have an edge is the ability to buy high quality older Pentax manual focus lenses to slap on your DSLR. If this is something you'll consider doing then he has a point.

Because you are talking about taking landscape style shots you probably want something wide - Vuk, let me know if i'm wrong here, but wide old decent Pentax lenses are probably limited to 28mm? If this is the case, this will be around 40mm on a 1.5 crop which may not be wide enough depending on your style.

So if I were you i'd be looking to get a DSLR camera kit with a wide zoom lens as standard, and hope that stopped down to F8 the quality is reasonable. Vuk may have experience with the standard cheap Pentax lens.

In my opinion, a good cheap(ish) zoom to cover the wide end is the Sigma 18-50 F2.8.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002P19O4/?tag=pinkfishmedia-20

I believe it comes in Nikon/Pentax/Canon flavours so this shouldn't limit your choice of body. I'm a Canon man myself, but this wasn't an informed decision I made, I just fell in that direction and i'm sure i'd have been happy with Canon/Nikon or Pentax.

Cesare
 
Hi,

Pentax have a few wide angle options - both old and new. I've got an old FA20, alternatively you could pick up a new DA21 lens. Pentax also have IIRC a DA14 plus a fisheye zoom. You can also pick up a decent inexpensive 16mm Fisheye from Russia that in PK mount. Few other options beside if you look around.

Regards,

Stuart.
 
Jonathan Ribee said:
Thanks Gents

OK - the KD20 seems a bit much for someone who has no idea how much he will use the thing yet, and just wants to play.

Looking at the spec for the *is tds (which seems to be no longer available) and trying to compare with a current Pentax - does that Pentax K100D seem sensible?

£280 for one with a basic 18-55mm lens avalable in the UK. Which is a lot less than I thought I'd have to invest. Pentax K mount for lenses.

Seems to good to be true?
Click to expand...

And following on from what Cesare was saying about older Pentax lenses:
I recently acquired an *istDS body from a forum member then searched ebay for a lens - (is it just me or do the prices after you start looking suddenly jump from those completed before you started looking?). Got to the point where it seemed sensible to just buy a new lens, which is what I did. In retrospect (well, a day later) this seems to have been a good move. As someone new to DSLR there are a fair few new things to learn, so having body and lens talk to each other is worthwhile for me.
(difference in price old manual lens vs new auto lens was £60)
 
Jonathon,

I am still very happy with my K100D. I bought a very old manual 50mm 1.4 for £15 and it is great. Next step is something like a 135 prime.


cheers
Jason
 
A 135 prime on a crop camera is quite long, but you can get some lovely closeup shots with it. For kids this can be quite handy since the longer working distance stops them getting too interested in what you are up to.

Here is an example. This was a Canon 135/2.8 on a 1.6 crop body. It was at F4. Nice narrow DOF and a really sharp cheap lens.

Cesare

crw_6707.jpg
 
After another day chasing the kids with the camera I am starting to doubt the 135 wisdom, they are alwys too close or too far away! - maybe a half decent zoom is the way to go for general pics ....

cheers
Jason
 
Jason

maybe you need to buy my Minolta Dynax 9xi kit with a choice of zooms and a sports card which auto zooms the moving object to the maximum size it can in the frame you have selected - ie if you can point at the kid, it will do its best to frame them.

Unfortunately the days of negative film are pretty much over for me except for portraiture in B&W (maybe).

I don't know if anyone does a digital version of what the 9xi used to do. ....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top