DSLR help

[Neal]

The price for a DSLR is always a bit scary. It's a lot of money, well for most of us, and I think we all feel like we wouldn't use it to its maximum usage. You can only learn so much before trail and error and getting your hands on one though. The quality in the pictures from a good camera just does not compare to anything else.

I have a Cannon so sadly cannot help you with the exact model you are looking at. Usually kits are a good deal for a "everyday" lens. 90 mm will be good for shots of people, places, and wide angles. I personally sold my "kit" lens once I bought a 18-200mm lens which I'm very happy with. It's the one I use most often out and with the snakes. Personally of I could only have one lens it would be it. It has a great range so it saves me from switching lens to often.

There are places around here where you can rent lens and try them out or I suggest going to the store at least and playing with the camera if you can.

I would suggest if you can purchasing the body and an upgraded lens with the largest range that you can. It saves you from lugging around a lot of lens and gives your the greatest edge capturing what you want. If you are wanting to do macro I highly suggest you purchase a separate lens with just macro in mind.

Hopefully this helped and I didn't ramble on to long. Good luck!!

Well the Tamron 90mm is strictly a macro lens, and from all the stuff I've read up on it a quite good one as well. The older ones had slow auto focus but for macros you're going to want to do the focus manual anyways. Then the only other thing I would need is a distance lense which I'm assuming is that 200mm that was mentioned earlier.

[3skulls]

Depending on what kind of Marco stuff you want to do, you need to look into lighting as well.

Invest your money into the lenses. They are the only part of your setup that can / will last.

I hunt with a Canon so I can't help with Nikon questions. :p

[reptileexperts]

First watch that

Body wise, you can get away with lower end bodies, especially to start with. This is going to get you introduced to your DSLR world, and you can learn how to use your camera better. Remember, a really nice body will do nothing in the wrong hands. A D90 is good enough, a D7000 used would probably be a lot better, and even cost around the same price point.

Why has no one said a nifty 50?? Back when I started it was the first lens I bought with my Nikon D70 back in 2005. EVERYONE screams that you need a macro lens, but really you just need a lens that will get you close enough. Macro is a dedicated lens for macro work that can handle extreme F stops like F22 - F30 without bringing in a lot of chromatic aberrations. However, a nifty 50 (50mm F1.8 or 1.4) can focus down to nearly 1 ft, and on a crop sensor body you will get 75mm out of it. I have taken many many many of my reptile photographs with this lens, and it is a fast enough F stop that you can use it in low light situations for parties, indoor events, and general street photography, plus did I mention that you can get it dirt cheap?? A 50mm 1.8 is only 110 usd, and the 1.4 version - much nicer - can be had for just over 300.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwmCrGVS3ZQ watch that next.


Nikon D200, 50mm F1.8 lens, Nikon SB-600 flash diffused with a piece of a paper.

Summery? For less than a grand, I'm betting on ebay you can pick up a lightly used D7000 and a Nikkor 50mm 1.4 lens to go with it. If you really want a macro, there is an old school 60mm Macro lens that is QUITE sharp and amazing for under 350 USD you can add later on. Just remember, its not the lens and camera that makes a good picture, it takes the right person.

[Neal]

I'm going to have to do some more reading but I just like the feel of the D90 versus the D5100 and D3200. They felt cheap and the D90 felt pretty sturdy. I'd prefer new over used because I don't know how good they took care of what they have plus I'd be more content with having a warranty. I'm not going to mess with lightning much though because all that is complicated though I did read about SB-600 flash for the Nikons.

[Alexis111]

Exactly guy, that's my battle. I have a digicam that I never use now, I've had it for over two decades and I can depend on two arms the periods I've actually used it

[Neal]

Exactly guy, that's my battle. I have a digicam that I never use now, I've had it for over two decades and I can depend on two arms the periods I've actually used it

I ended up going with the D7000 because of several reasons and I'm happy as all can be with it. I have the 18-105mm lens and I can get some nice pictures in. A few months down the road from now I want to get the Sigma HSM 105mm macro lens which will be about $700 but I'll be happy with it as I was able to test it first hand.