starboarder said...
Hi guys
I am deciding between the nikon D40 or D60, i heard its better to get the d40 and spend the extra money to get a good lends like 55-200mm VR ?
what do you think for a beginner
thanks
Hi starboarder
i think you need to ask yourself whether you want to take photos or do photography as a hobby.
if you want to take photos then a point and shoot super zoom will do the job.
if you want to take up photography as a hobby then the dslr camera is the way to go.
without commenting on brands there are some important thing to know.
camera bodiesi decided on a metal frame sealed body. it's not a must have but i had a couple of entry level unsealed cameras fall apart due to sand after a year or so use.
also 3 fps is not fast enough for sports photography. you need 5 fps min to make the most of your shots.
the other item when talking bodies is the sensor size. an entry level aps-c sensor dslr body has a crop factor of around 1.6x so a 100mm lens is the equivalent of 160mm in old school 35mm film terms and so on.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APS-Clensthe advice here is get the best lens you can afford. you get what you pay for.
for sizes, i find myself that my 300mm (480mm equivalent on aps-c body) lens is not quite long enough from time to time. add to this the fact that entry level lenses get soft at max zoom and you soon end up needing some headroom. but it does depend on what you photograph.
the lens sizes i usualy find work are
bump and jump - 200-300mm (need more sometimes).
speed sailing - 70-200mm plenty
wave sailing beach - 100-300mm
so i reckon the 55-200 will fall short a lot of the time. so check out some longer lenses.
www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Nikkor_DX_55-200mm_VR/verdict.shtmlalso at the wide end, 55mm (80mm equivalent) is way too long for indoors at home plus too long for decent landscape shots. for those you need to be more around the 17-55mm mark. what this means in usual terms is 2 lenses. sad but true.
the speed of the lens (f stop) is also important. all of my lenses are f/4 and i would prefer f/2.8 for more flexibility. ultimately using f/4 lenses means for low light situations you will need a tripod (longer exposure) of fill flash (for moving objects). after 2 years of taking photos there has only been 3 time where i needed a lens in the <2 category and i don't use tripods. those occasions have all been at night or in a room with minimal lighting and people moving around.
am currently looking into f/2 and faster lenses for shooting bands. the other times you would need that speed are all hand held occasions where you don't want flash, like weddings at night, indoor sports etc or dof macro outcomes like pandas pancakes. the thing is it is hard to shoot at less than f/2.0 with moving objects as the depth of field (focus distance) is very short.
like panda my preference is to not use flash and only use it when absolutely required. ambient lighting to me just looks better.
i currently use a 40d with the 17-85 is usm and 70-300 is usm lens looking at the 50mm f/1.8 very soon. down the track an upgrade to the 24-70L and 100-400L
if money were no problem i would have
1Ds Mark iii body with
16-35mm L f/2.8 usm
24-70mm L f/2.8 usm
70-200mm L f/2.8 is usm
100-400mm L f4.5-5.6 is usm
600mm f/4.0 L is usm
24mm f/1.4
50mm f/1.2
85mm f/1.2
24mm tilt shift
that would cover everything.
this is a good article.
photo.net/equipment/building-a-digital-slr-system/
