OT TO SOME DEGREE - CAMERA
Submitted: Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 07:23
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Oz Travellers
I am thinking of getting an SLR Camera, the camera
shop recommended the Sony DSLR-A100. I would love any kind of feed back from someone who has had this brand. I was not impresssed with Cannon when they took over three months to repair under warranty my Cannon IS1 and have been told that the extra lenses that come with the Cannon are not that great.
Carolyn
Reply By: tomjones83 - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 08:13
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 08:13
Nikon d80 is a fantastic SLR. You can go down to the D40 as
well if you want to save the $$ but you are restricted by what lenses you can use.
AnswerID:
220104
Reply By: Member - Alastair D (NSW) - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 08:15
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 08:15
Can't agree re Canon. Own several and always been very happy. Have a look at the Canon 400D.
alastair
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220105
Reply By: mfewster - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 08:47
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 08:47
The camera that is getting all the raves in that segment of the market at the moment is the Pentax10D.
Check some of the reviews at sites like and compare its price/features and build quality.
www.dpreview.com/
theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/
Check the last site for contributions from Carl Weese. Over the last few months he has been using evaluating and comparing a K10 with other cameras in this range and his observations are really interesting.
I have a Minolta 5D which I love. The new Sony is an updated version of the 5D after Sony took over the Minolta/Konica design rights. The big problem with this range is the relatively small number of lenses available and the price of these lenses because Minolta owners have been bidding them up to extraordinary prices. The Sony uses the same lens system and say they will bring out new lenses for the range, Some have come out but they are very pricey.
If I was buying a new camera in this range today I'd be getting the Pentax. What I really like about the 5D, the Sony and even more so about the Pentax , is the number of major controls that can be accessed from the body of the camera without having to wade through menus on the screen to find what you need. Lower end Canon/Nikon are now catching up on this, but you will get more details by reading the Carl Weese reports. I also think the body/build on the lower end Canon/Nikons is not as good. Example. Have a look at the weather sealing on the Pentax 10D. The other cameras in this range don't put in this sort of sealing until you get to models that cost much more.
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Follow Up By: mfewster - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 09:13
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 09:13
Sorry, meant to also give the following site which is particularly interesting and detailed and does some direct comparisons with other similar cameras. Even more interesting because the writer is a rather famous Canon user.
Site Link
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Follow Up By: Member - JohnR (Vic)&Moses - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 09:53
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 09:53
Interesting article mfewster particularly looking at the brand comparison near the bottom of the article. I made a mistake years ago buying a Contax which was a rebadged Konica-Yashika but had good lenses. I guess that expreience made me shy of buying another SLR and getting involved that way.
The comments about Sony and some of the others is interesting too. I guess I have looked away from them because of the proprietary Memory Stick. SD cards are a bit like VHS in their useability. I use SD cards and CF cards in my PDA. Olympus SLRs were always very Dinky (toy) with their cameras and I didn't have child like hands. I always thought Minolta solid but they don't seem to have progressed at the same rate.
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Follow Up By: mfewster - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 10:27
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 10:27
Hi
John
Minolta no longer make cameras. They pioneered some great technology like anti shake inside the camera body that is now being copied by everyone. When they stopped making cameras, they gave all their design rights to Sony, which is why Minolta now seem to have fallen off the pace. Most of the newer Sony models use cards as
well as memory sticks. I always thought the memory sticks were a pain as
well.
Cheers
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Follow Up By: Jimington - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 10:39
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 10:39
Yeah Minolta are out of the digital camera game and they sold all their know how to Sony. I bought a Z6 Minolta at a fair price because of that.
I was doing a bit of looking around SLRs the other day and if i was to spoil myself with another camera now it'd be the Nikon D40. 6 megapixels is ample for me and i'd
hazard to say 90% of users.
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Follow Up By: Wok - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 13:50
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 13:50
mfewster,
Wondering if my old Minolta lenses, both manual and autofocus, would fit the Sony body? They are from analog days, not digital?
Thks............eng
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Follow Up By: mfewster - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 16:36
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 16:36
Hi Wok
I believe all your old Minolta autofocus lens will fit the Sony slr and all the focus/info sharing with the camera will work. There will be the usual 1.3 focal length multiplication factor. Some of those old analogue AF lenses are now worth a lot of $ because of this. Don't sell any of them cheap until you have checked their current prices on ebay. Try this site. It lists all the lenses that can be used with Minolta mount digital cameras (including the Sony) and evaluates the lenses.
" target="EOF" class="lbg">www.dyxum.com/
Additionally, most of the old analogue non auto focus lens will also work. You need to buy an adapter ring. These are very cheap and plentiful on ebay. You have to set the camera to manual however to use use these.
Cheers
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Follow Up By: Wok - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 16:51
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 16:51
mfewster,
Thanks for that info..........there's life for the old bird yet!
eng
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Reply By: HGMonaro - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 10:00
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 10:00
I have a Pentax K10D. The controls really work
well and some of the 'fancy' features are actually useful. I bought the 'better' lens (16-45mm/f4) which is a bit bigger and heavier than the 18-55mm std Pentax one but I played with the std lens for a night (while they got my choosen lens in) and it seemed quite good. I have also picked up the 50-200mm zoomy (via HK eBay seller) and are happer with that as a rarely used telephoto. All the Pentax lenses come with nice lens hoods which was unexpected but a bonus.
I haven't printed many pics (and not had any printed commercially) but would say the std settings give slightly soft results that need some sharpening in the image editor of your choice. It has in camera settings for sharpness/contrast but I'm yet to have a play with them to see how they effect the picture.
Some examples (resized for web display) not that you can really tell anything from pics on the web!:
some K10D pics (this link may disappear at some stage in the future... that's the nature of presonal websites!)
If you don't want to spend quite as much, the K100D is also an option (6MP instead of 10MP, bit smaller and lighter and missing a couple of features that the K10D has). It has also gotten great reviews. Remember to budget for a memory card and 2nd battery (if the camera take a special one). If it can take AA's then you can always have some of them handy for backup. The K10D uses a special battery so a 2nd is needed (IMO). I have read some decent reviews of the Sony but never laid my hands on it during my shopping.
I agree with what was said about making sure you hold and operate each camera as some feel better in your hands than others. I have a Nikon 35mm manual focus SLR system (2 bodies, 8 lenses, various accesories) but choose the Pentax as I just liked the way it felt in my hand and the ease of use of regularly used functions.
Cheers, Nige
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Reply By: AdrianLR (VIC) - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 10:20
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 10:20
I have a Pentax K100D. Excellent value. My existing K-mount lenses work nicely. The SD card and AA batteries are very important as that's what I've standardised on for the laptop/PDA/chargers. The resulting photos are noticeably better than from my Pentax 33WR for three reasons - better technical image quality, instant shutter response over multiple images and being an SLR I find that I "compose" photos rather than "point-and-click". Battery life is excellent. A work colleague also has one and has spent the time to tweak the stand settings. The results are better in terms of colour, sharpness and tonal quality. The comment about the camera functions being availble via buttons rather than menus is spot on. Also a Cannon model I looked at had
grey-on-
grey menus which were very hard to read.
Adrian
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Reply By: Member - Stan (VIC) - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 11:55
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 11:55
Here is the review of best cameras in different categories...
www.steves-digicams.com/best_cameras.html
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Follow Up By: mfewster - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 12:23
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 12:23
I think Steve's reviews are pretty good however if you note his cameras page, he hasn't as yet reviewed the Pentax 10D to compare it with the others. There are significant differences between the 100D (which Steve has reviewed and recommended) and the 10D. IMO and generally from other review sites, the 10D is the current class leader. If you are going to use the camera in the bush, which I guess is probable for readers of this
forum, the weather/dustseal features of the 10D alone make it worth a serious look
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Reply By: Member - David A (QLD) - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 18:13
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 18:13
Hi Carolyn,
I bought the sony about a month ago and have been happy with it to date (although admittedly I haven't used it a whole heap yet). I liked the following features:
10MP (when taking wildlife shots at a distance, by the time you crop down there is still a lot of picture left)
Antishake - built into the camera body
Auto cleaning of the CCD on start-up
My short-list covered a wide budget range, and included the sony r1, pentax k100 and the nikon d40 (didn't like the kit lenses of the d-80). Spent a lot of time going through reviews as mentioned above.
Kit lenses are kit lenses, but the sony ones seem fairly good. I got the twin lenses to give more versatility. Do be aware that the "mm" stated have a 1.5 factor due the size of the CCD. So, an 18mm lens is actually 27mm in 35mm equiv. and a 300mm is actually 450mm equiv. The high end sony lenses are Carl Zeiss which is a highly respected brand.
Yes, the shutter is a little noisy, but that was way down my list of important features.
Here's an alternative - if you don't want/need a whole heap of zoom, the sony r1 could be for you. Carl Zeiss lens, 10MP, fantastic pictures, fully programmable but not an SLR. Fixed lens at (from memory) 18-125mm in 35mm equiv.
Hope that's of some use.
Cheers
David
AnswerID:
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Follow Up By: Member - David A (QLD) - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 18:23
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 18:23
Sorry, too many camera models in my head.....
d80 lenses were fine - out of my budget
didn't like the kit lenses in the canon EOS400
But, that's only my 2 cents worth
Cheers
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Reply By: Markymark - Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 22:08
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007 at 22:08
Well we don't have a DSLR, but we have the next best thing for considerably less, a Canon S3 IS. This camera is brilliant, the photo's have great colour, a 12X optical zoom, rotating view finder, it's not quite as big as a DSLR and less than half the price. I bought it for $550 online with a 2GB Sandisk SD card for $50.
Check out this site
www.goodgearguide.com.au/
for reviews on all manner of electrical toys from the computer mag Australian PC World.
I couldn't quite afford a DSLR at the moment but am stoked with this camera.
Mark.
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Reply By: Oz Travellers - Wednesday, Feb 07, 2007 at 10:50
Wednesday, Feb 07, 2007 at 10:50
Thank you all for your advice and the sites to read. I liked the Sony for the 3 points given above. I must remember is to see how it feels in my hands, I just looked at it and read the brochures, it also seemed to have lots of adjustments on the outside of the camera which I feel is good and was mentioned in another brand ^^^.
Carolyn
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Follow Up By: mfewster - Friday, Feb 09, 2007 at 08:00
Friday, Feb 09, 2007 at 08:00
I just came across the following review that I thought might be of interest to you. Generally kit lens are rather poor. The Minolta kit lens is identical to the Sony kit lens. I have always felt that the Minolta kit lens (which I use) is much better than the kit lens you get with Canon and Nikon cameras (I'm not knocking Canon and Nikon lenses, just the quality of the bundled cheap lens they sell with their basic cameras.)
Site Link
If you are going with the Sony, thought you would find this comforting.
Cheers
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Follow Up By: Andrew from Vivid Adventures - Friday, Feb 09, 2007 at 08:32
Friday, Feb 09, 2007 at 08:32
Hi Carolyn,
I think all of the cameras mentioned above are pretty capable and I have used them all. I am a Canon user because of the investment in lenses that I have which makes switching inconvenient.
I am firmly of the view that once the basics are addressed, being comfortable with using the camera is the most important factor - everyone works differently and has different size hands and levels of comfort with weight and balance.
Don't be afraid to totally embarrass yourself in the camera store and use it for half an hour or more and be totally at ease with it.
Most consumers do not see any difference between the kit lenses except the feel and perhaps construction of the lens - maybe after a few months you might start to notice because the of resolution of the camera allowing your photography and lenses to come under closer scrutiny, but the investment in those lenses is usually only $50-100 each (as part of the kit) - not enough to worry about compared to the price of higher quality lenses.
I have a Digital Camera Buyer's Guide on my website
http://www.vividadventures.com.au/VAchecklist.pdf which might give you a list of other things to think about including remembering to buy the memory cards, software and batteries that your sort of use of the camera will require - the 10-MPixel cameras can chew through memory cards quite quickly.
Cheers
Andrew.
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