Camera Suggestions
Thinking of picking up a new digital SLR camera over the holidays. Like the Canon brand but there seem to be so many different versions. Anyone big into cameras/photography? If I have old 35MM lenses, can I buy an adapter for the SLR digital cameras?
Comments
I used to do tonnes of photography...I even had a photo business during a couple summers of vet school. These days I don't bother lugging around my DSLR much except on long trips. I went to Hawaii and San Diego this year and took zero pics...didn't even take a camera because of the thought of lugging it around. I have a Nikon D90 with a bunch of fast/expensive lenses that I'm going to sell.
I just did a bunch of research online a few weeks ago for nonSLR zooms and they look pretty great these days. I bought one for my gf for when we travel so that we don't have to lug around a camera bag. For compact zoom travel cameras (not bulky) I ended-up picking the Sony DSC Hx9v after narrowing it down to 3 cameras. I highly recommend you check it out before considering another SLR. If you want I can find the others I was comparing it to online. I think some are a bit more limited in controls -- I can't recall if you can switch to aperture or fully manual with the Sony, but with matrix metering these days you rarely need to be fully manual. The Sony also has some cool feature that I hadn't heard of before. The one I thought was the coolest was that in low light it will take a few images to gain more info and merge them to gain more detail without needing to use a flash...so you get natural light shots more easily without a tripod, etc.
Old 35mm lenses should work on newer bodies -- with some you lose features (autofocus, depth of field preview, etc) but most should work. Nikon is great for that...I think Canon may have some compatibility issues with older lenses, but I've always had Nikon.
The best resource/forum for checking out cameras is generally photo.net, the best price comparison site is usually bandhphotovideo.com (big US superstore). Reviews on nonSLR cameras are generally good on any tech site cnet.com etc.
I think the days of needing an SLR for anything but profession photography are coming to an end. These travel zooms have pretty fast lenses even at the longer ends and you end-up taking the camera with you more and taking more pictures/enjoying photography more.
http://www.Photo.net
is the place to start looking.
If you're buying into an SLR camera system, Nikon or Canon is the way to go. I have an extensive Canon System.
What mount are your old SLR lenses?
Nikons always fit.
choice of company is really dependent on what you like to use. The software and feature buttons are so dissimilar it is worse than the difference between Mac and Windows by far. More like english and french.