Hey folks, coming into the discussion a bit late, but wanted to share a couple thoughts and advice...
First and foremost, if you're looking for a camera, find something that YOU enjoy using! At any given price/feature level, just about anything you pick up with give you the same quality pictures, and 99% of people would never be able to tell what camera you used just by looking at the pictures.
The Canon vs. Nikon vs. whatever debates can go on forever, but the reality is, the BEST camera is the one that GETS USED, and the most important thing to make sure that happens is that YOU are comfortable using the camera. There's a wide range in any segment, of size, weight, feel, ergonomics, menus, operation... narrow your choice to two or three models in your price range and/or with the features you want, then GO TO A BRICK-AND-MORTAR STORE, and handle them all. Work with them, play with them, navigate the menus and settings and options... the camera that is fun and easy FOR YOU to use is far less likely to sit on a shelf collecting dust, where all the debating and minutiae in the world means absolutely nothing. Remember, nobody else can tell you what YOU will be most comfortable with!
Allow me to be a small voice of dissent and say that if you're trying to learn photography, perhaps starting on an SLR (even a starter SLR) may not be the best way to go. You can learn fundamentals and compose fantastic images on much cheaper equipment that won't limit you in the future if you do decide you want to pursue better equipment.
One thing that very, very few P&S cameras will do is allow manual focus (and those that do, it's often electronically-controlled which severely limits its effectiveness). If you really want to LEARN photography, IMHO, the ability to focus manually WILL be important to you, usually sooner rather than later. And the "real" view through the SLR's optical viewfinder simply can't be matched with a P&S's electronic viewfinder.
Also,
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think a starter SLR + lenses make a professional camera, which was why I mentioned it. I'd hate, as an example, to get a starter SLR, get really good with it, and then have to spend money on a new body when I've already spent this much on the starter. You're also not going to start buying L lenses for a starter SLR, so you'll get a few regular ol' lenses to shoot around with and learn, and then you'll have to sell those to buy more again.
Actually, going budget on the body and spending a bit more on a quality lens or two is a great way to start. DSLR bodies (and P&S cameras, for that matter) will become obsolete quickly, but a good lens will be a good lens for a very long time. As your skills improve and needs expand, you can upgrade your body, and not have to worry about replacing your lenses as well. Often, you can pick up a last-generation body for cheap as newer models are released, but the same rarely holds true with lenses.
And at the end of the experiment, if you decide photography isn't for you, a quality lens will retain its resale value a LOT better than a higher-level body and cheap lens. I recently sold off my Digital Rebel 300D with its kit lens, a battery grip, and a camera bag for a whopping $300... all that cost me over $1400 when I got it five years ago - now that's depreciation! Meantime, if I'd bought, say, a 70-210 f/2.8L lens back then, I could resell that today for very little depreciation, because it's still a great lens, and lens optical technology really hasn't changed that much in the past hundred years or so. All that's really changed with newer lenses is the addition of "extras" like IS and USM, but even without those "goodies", the older lens will still take stunning photos (assuming it hasn't been abused).
My point was exactly what you ended with. If you buy a starter SLR and a starter lens, you're not going to get retail out of it on resale, and you're still going to end up buying a better body and higher-quality lenses if you decide to stay with photography. That was exactly my point. You could spend $500 on a cheap SLR and $80 on the kit lens and just end up upgrading to a 50D and a 24-70L, or you could start with a prosumer P&S for $250-300, learn your fundamentals, and jump to the 50D/24-70 when you're ready, and you've saved $300.
And many of the prosumers I've used (S2, S3IS, S5) had manual focus - they didn't have the ring, but you'd hit a button and adjust focus using a d-pad from x to infinity.
It doesn't matter, because Felix has his camera and is taking great pictures with it, but your logic was exactly my point. Nobody's going to start getting into photography with a 300D and a 70-200 f/2.8L - the lens is worth 6 times the body. In other words, you'll still have to upgrade.
It doesn't matter, because Felix has his camera and is taking great pictures with it, but your logic was exactly my point. Nobody's going to start getting into photography with a 300D and a 70-200 f/2.8L - the lens is worth 6 times the body.
And yet I know people who have. This is common advice on a number of photography forums I frequent.
In other words, you'll still have to upgrade.
Yes... regardless of what CAMERA you get, whether SLR or P&S, it will quickly be obsolete and if you're serious about it, you'll probably WANT (not HAVE) to upgrade sooner than later.
A good lens doesn't become obsolete. It's will hold its value and quality. It's a good investment, and thus a good place to start if you're new to photography.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing Felix's pictures with his new toy!
Thanks for jumping in on the conversation Soundy, very sound advice.. And yes, this was pretty much the only SLR camera I had used before choosing to buy it. I do find it confortable to use and very easy to remember where everything is. I'm loving every minute of it so far and the fun doesn't finish with taking the pictures but editing them to be more clear.. A new thing I have found is HDR images.. However, the ones I have taken are all from Dublin and it was a pretty dull day.. On a nice day I'm sure I will get some stunning pictures.
You're lucky, you missed the "peak" of the HDR craze, when everybody and his dog was doing it to every picture they took and just cranking out horrible stuff.
Some nice pics there. Some of the HDRs do seem a bit over-done for my liking - remember, the main purpose of HDR is to show dynamic range that our eyes see but the camera can't fully capture. Which is not to say it can't be overdone intentionally for effect, but some stuff there just looks... unnatural. The second (tighter) Dublin River one, for example, looks really plastic, while the wider one isn't so bad.
Same thing on the Kilmainham courtyard - you can see how the effect has left a glow along the edge of the wall. It looks neat, something that might be used in a movie dream sequence perhaps (check out the dream/hallucination scenes in Gladiator), but again, feels really unnatural.
But that's my main... critique, I guess, is the right word. Got some nice framing and good subjects going on, just a little overdone on some of the HDR processing.
Yeah the ones look overdone are overdone intentionally, we just liked the look of them. It was a dull day so we couldn't ge the true desired effect so went for that one instead
I like your use of HDR, it's a good application. Sky shots are always good to under-expose a little so that you get some detail in the clouds and stuff. But when you do that, you start to lose the ground objects to silhouette. Expose for the ground, and the sky gets washed out. HDR lets you expose for both, as you demonstrate in the Dublin church shot:
I wouldn't worry about it being overdone at all. Accurate exposure of multiple divergent brightness levels is the whole point of HDR. If anything, I might have pushed the sky even brighter. Like Soundy says, it's about getting the range out of the camera that your eyes+brain get naturally.
Comments
First and foremost, if you're looking for a camera, find something that YOU enjoy using! At any given price/feature level, just about anything you pick up with give you the same quality pictures, and 99% of people would never be able to tell what camera you used just by looking at the pictures.
The Canon vs. Nikon vs. whatever debates can go on forever, but the reality is, the BEST camera is the one that GETS USED, and the most important thing to make sure that happens is that YOU are comfortable using the camera. There's a wide range in any segment, of size, weight, feel, ergonomics, menus, operation... narrow your choice to two or three models in your price range and/or with the features you want, then GO TO A BRICK-AND-MORTAR STORE, and handle them all. Work with them, play with them, navigate the menus and settings and options... the camera that is fun and easy FOR YOU to use is far less likely to sit on a shelf collecting dust, where all the debating and minutiae in the world means absolutely nothing. Remember, nobody else can tell you what YOU will be most comfortable with!
Wanted to comment on this as well:
One thing that very, very few P&S cameras will do is allow manual focus (and those that do, it's often electronically-controlled which severely limits its effectiveness). If you really want to LEARN photography, IMHO, the ability to focus manually WILL be important to you, usually sooner rather than later. And the "real" view through the SLR's optical viewfinder simply can't be matched with a P&S's electronic viewfinder.
Also,
Actually, going budget on the body and spending a bit more on a quality lens or two is a great way to start. DSLR bodies (and P&S cameras, for that matter) will become obsolete quickly, but a good lens will be a good lens for a very long time. As your skills improve and needs expand, you can upgrade your body, and not have to worry about replacing your lenses as well. Often, you can pick up a last-generation body for cheap as newer models are released, but the same rarely holds true with lenses.
And at the end of the experiment, if you decide photography isn't for you, a quality lens will retain its resale value a LOT better than a higher-level body and cheap lens. I recently sold off my Digital Rebel 300D with its kit lens, a battery grip, and a camera bag for a whopping $300... all that cost me over $1400 when I got it five years ago - now that's depreciation! Meantime, if I'd bought, say, a 70-210 f/2.8L lens back then, I could resell that today for very little depreciation, because it's still a great lens, and lens optical technology really hasn't changed that much in the past hundred years or so. All that's really changed with newer lenses is the addition of "extras" like IS and USM, but even without those "goodies", the older lens will still take stunning photos (assuming it hasn't been abused).
And many of the prosumers I've used (S2, S3IS, S5) had manual focus - they didn't have the ring, but you'd hit a button and adjust focus using a d-pad from x to infinity.
It doesn't matter, because Felix has his camera and is taking great pictures with it, but your logic was exactly my point. Nobody's going to start getting into photography with a 300D and a 70-200 f/2.8L - the lens is worth 6 times the body. In other words, you'll still have to upgrade.
/moot point
And yet I know people who have. This is common advice on a number of photography forums I frequent.
Yes... regardless of what CAMERA you get, whether SLR or P&S, it will quickly be obsolete and if you're serious about it, you'll probably WANT (not HAVE) to upgrade sooner than later.
A good lens doesn't become obsolete. It's will hold its value and quality. It's a good investment, and thus a good place to start if you're new to photography.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing Felix's pictures with his new toy!
Some of my fav's are uploaded to flickr.... www.flickr.com/photos/felixdesouze
Let me know what you think
Some nice pics there. Some of the HDRs do seem a bit over-done for my liking - remember, the main purpose of HDR is to show dynamic range that our eyes see but the camera can't fully capture. Which is not to say it can't be overdone intentionally for effect, but some stuff there just looks... unnatural. The second (tighter) Dublin River one, for example, looks really plastic, while the wider one isn't so bad.
Same thing on the Kilmainham courtyard - you can see how the effect has left a glow along the edge of the wall. It looks neat, something that might be used in a movie dream sequence perhaps (check out the dream/hallucination scenes in Gladiator), but again, feels really unnatural.
But that's my main... critique, I guess, is the right word. Got some nice framing and good subjects going on, just a little overdone on some of the HDR processing.
Glad you're liking the XSi!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/felixdesouze/4081484124/
I wouldn't worry about it being overdone at all. Accurate exposure of multiple divergent brightness levels is the whole point of HDR. If anything, I might have pushed the sky even brighter. Like Soundy says, it's about getting the range out of the camera that your eyes+brain get naturally.
Happy shooting.