I need help!

[neuroanatomist]

If you like the pics from your P&S, great! Sure, 3 of those might cost the same as a dSLR. But stack all 3 of them and the pile would be smaller than a dSLR. If you

[Kayaker72]

Hi Kristina,


Far be it from me to disuade you from a DSLR. And honestly, if you have been through a couple of P&S cameras, you probably enjoy photography enough justify a DSLR. One item you haven't mentioned, or I missed it, is your budget. How much do you want to spend on this purchase. Because like any great hoby, it is more expensive than you think and the costs just keep going up the deeper you get into it. I foolishly started this year thinking that I could buy my 7D and upgrade my kit lens and I'd be happy. I blew my first budget because I ended up wanting the good B+W MRC UV filters on my lens, a better backpack to carry my new purchase, bigger/faster memory cards, a backup battery, etc. I blew way past my original budget after viewing a number of amazing photos from this forum and wanting to upgrade my old filmlenses. Thanks to this forum I now have a long list of lenses, flashes, memory cards, books, and software that I want....Usually my wife isn't sure what to get me for Christmas....not this year []...


As you like taking pictures of your friends, I can see you starting with a camera body and a kit lens. But which camera depends upon your budget and what you want that camera to really do. Second, typically the quality of the lens you have has more to do with your image quality than the camera itself, so, again, depending upon your budget you might want to upgrade your kit zoom. Or, you could add a prime lenswhich tend to give you better image quality and wider apertures at a lower cost than a zoom lens, but are limited to a single focal length. The faster aperture will help you get better depth of field, which blurs your fore-/background and really makes your subject stand out (great for people). And, if you are taking pictures of people indoors you may want an external flash (the one attached to the camera only gets you so far). An external flash will reduce red-eye in people (even a DSLRinternal flash will be better than a P&S, but an external flash really should reduce it), help you focus faster in low light situations, will extend the effective reach of the flash, and you can change the direction of the flash (if you get a good one)to bounce the burst of light off the ceiling or wall which creates a "softer/more flattering" light on your subject.


So, in short, getting a good camera body is the start and an important start, but DSLRs are really about the ACCESSORIES. So get a camera body that fits your needs, but make sure you can also get the accessories that you want as, ultimately, a DSLR with a kit lens is only a 1 step improvement over some of the better P&S cameras. The big differencecomes when you start adding lenses/flashes/etc. That said, I am a big fan of incrementally buying gear, so I'd recommend identifying a basic kit that will let you do what you want and then slowly adding on. Given what you have said, I think this approach will help you learn about photography and grow over time.


But the specifics really get down to your budget andwhat features you want. I don't know Nikon, but in the world of Canon, a Rebel with the kit 18-55 IS lens may be a good start. So that you can start seeing what a better lens can do, you might want a "non-L" prime such as the 50 mm f/1.4, or the 85 mm f/1.8 (both between $350-$400 at Amazon) that would be good for pictures of your friends (the fast aperture would also let you start playing with DOF). Many people on this forum started with a Rebel and moved onto something like the 50/60D, 7D or 5D and lenses such as the EFS 17-55 f/2.8, EFS 15-85 or an "L" general purpose lens.So if you can afford thosenow, maybe you start there...but again,this gets back to your budget and what features you want. But starting with a Rebel will give you a limited "feature" set and very good image qualityin comparison to theother camera bodies, the 18-55 IS lens is typically considered a good "value" lens, and one of those primes should be a good stepping stone as to what you can really do with a DSLR. While random, one quick tip for someone starting out that I learned, multi-point AF sometimes leads to soft pictures (averages focus over too large an area), single point AF/manual focustends to givebetter/sharper images more consistently.


I hope that helps,


Brant


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