Canon Rebel T1i - Page 2

Really? I think the 70-200 and 24-70 are awesome.

Primes will always inherently have better optics, so comparing primes and zooms is comparing apples to oranges.

All these L zooms and primes can make great photo's for sure. If one upgrades to L zooms from consumer-grade zooms, then they ARE awesome. If one is used to something like 85L, 35L, then use 24-70L, not so much. At any rate, my long-awaited Graffeo coffee finally arrived, so I took this photo today with 24-70L (with extension tube).

Good choice on both, I think.

This is a great lens if you can find it.  Otherwise you cant go wrong with the 50mm 1.8. 

Have you ever thought about Micro  4 3 ?

Just get a decent lens and any camera is good, trust me.

 

I suggest skipping the kits lenses and getting a cheap 50mm 1,8 or 1,4, or as mentioned above, a 35 1,8. My wife has the latter and I've had the others. They are waaay better than any cheap kit zoom that you'll never use.

Edited by shigzeo - 3/24/11 at 8:00am

You don't HAVE to buy the body only. When I bought my Canon, I bought it with kit lens and a consumer zoom as a package on sale. I didn't touch the lenses and sold them as "new" on craigslist and eBay, ending up with just the body at an effective price way lower than I ever could have bought the body for. Unlike some of us here, the general public apparently doesn't mind the kit lens and non-elite lenses b/c they sold pretty quickly.

Between the Nikon D3100 and the Canon T1i, I'd personally go with the Nikon since I prefer smaller bodies. I also find that the lower-end consumer glass Nikon offers is better than Canon's entry level offerings. At the pro-grade levels I don't see much in difference either way from either company.

 

That being said, I'll throw my 2 cents in about Pentax.

 

1. The bodies themselves feel great in hands (either the K-x or K-r, major rub on K-x is it lacks autofocus indicators but I don't mind too much)

2. Same sensor as the D3100 meaning comparable image quality at least from the body perspective (though RAW processing is a bit worse if I recall correctly)

3. K-r is rated to have one of the best ISO (low light) capabilities currently available

4. Any lens, and I mean ANY lens ever made for the Pentax K-mount is compatible with ANY Pentax body dating back to 1977, and M42 lenses can be mounted easily with an adapter. This point is huge since you can pick up alot of great used lens extremely cheap, saving you some coin. Also any manual focus lenses that have an auto-aperture settings will work on aperture priority, while all manual focus lenses will auto-meter (not sure if Nikon implemented this into the D3100, but as far as I know this feature was absent in the slightly older D90)

 

Hate to muddle the decision more, but I honestly think Pentax is worth a look (not just because I own one - my dad has a Nikon set up and I think its just as good down to the glass, but I find knowing having full functionality on a lower end body to be a great selling point for the company).

I agree, but I'm not the biggest fan of the K-r. It's pretty much a K-x with a new sensor, focus indicator, and a hiked price tag.

The K-x, however, is still good value and worth a look if you're in that price range.

And the K-5 is on my ultimate drool gadget list.
Edited by revolink24 - 3/25/11 at 9:44pm

If you're looking at a DSLR and don't know what f/1.8 means, the Canon might be a good entry point camera for you.  My advice before dropping a grand on a DSLR and the necessary additions is to do some research on using a DSLR on a setting that isn't AUTO and see if you're willing to do the math to really enjoy your camera to it's fullest. Perhaps I'm being a bit of a snob but it irks me a bit when I see people walking around with $4k in gear on holiday and they never change the settings. Kinda like those people who use sub par headphones or popular brands and don't realize what they're missing. I'm not trying to deter you in the least but a decently set up Canon G12 or Nikon P7000 can essentially take as good if not better shots than most sub $2k DSLRs. As my photo teacher beat into our heads, "It's not the camera. It's the photographer. Someone who knows what they're doing can take amazing shots using a $5 disposable camera from Walmart".

 

That said, I had Canon's other relative entry point DSLR (Rebel XTi) a couple years back. I found the menu's frustrating and the lack of lens selection availability confining. They're great cameras and take decent photos but I switched to a Nikon D90 and really love it.

 

Some things to know before buying a DSLR. Unlike a film camera, a digital camera uses a sensor (CCD) to convert what it sees into bits. The size and quality of that sensor will impact the quality of the photo. The ISO range of the camera will reflect how well it will capture an image with available light. When a night shot looks grainy, it's the ISO that determines how grainy. In terms of lenses, the lower the 'mm' the wider the lens. A 25-70mm (wide angle and normal) lens will capture a wide viewpoint that's great for landscapes or architecture, it will also produce a much better quality portrait type photo. A 75-300+mm (telephoto or zoom) lens will capture a narrower viewpoint and will allow you to bring a far off subject into focus and also closer. The larger the mm the more susceptible to camera shake which brings Image Stabilization into the fold, if a lens has IS it's gonna be more expensive since it electronically tries to compensate for your shaking hands.

Very true, but this begs the ultimate question of a beginner with a great body/lens vs. a beginner with a cheap setup and which will yield better photos...for now, until they learn more, etc.