Cerebral Gibberish

Well I’ve been doing what I normally do when I want to buy something and that is research, research and more research. I’ve never really owned “nice” camera before and most of the time I tend to borrow a camera from my friends when ever I go on trips but I’ve been told I’ve been cut off (cough.. Justin). I decided to skip over the Point-n-Shoot style cameras and go right to the Digital SLRs (Single-Lens Reflex). Prices of D-SLRs have come down quite a bit since they were first introduced and now you can get a starter D-SLR for not much more then a top end Point-n-Shoot. From there the sky’s the limit.

Even thought I’ve never owned a SLR camera I have used them in the past and I am a quick study so I’ve decided to look at the cameras in the Prosumer / mid range category. This way I have something that I can grow into instead of growing out of one to soon. I’ve set my budget to be no more then $1500 which needs to cover the cost of the body and a lens, a case, memory card, and an extra battery. Later will come a flash and more lenses as I need them. This is where a SLR really shines by being able to swap lenses. Its like getting a whole new camera. Plus being that a SLR has a larger sensor then a point-n-shoot, image quality is, in theory, better even if the point-n-shoot has the same Megapixel (MP) rating.

From my research the main players in the D-SLR Prosumer market are: Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus and Sony. After my initial research I’ve pretty much dropped Pentax, Olympus and Sony from my list due mainly to the lenses they have to offer for their cameras. They may make great D-SLR bodies but if you can’t get great lenses to go with it, then you’ll loose out in the long run. Since lenses tend to only work with a specific manufacture (IE: A lens you buy for a Canon does not work on a Nikon and vise versa.), you tend to pick the body based on the lenses you want to use. Lenses also tend to out live a body so when its time to upgrade you will either have to 1) by a new body from the same manufacture so you can continue to use the lenses you already own or 2) switch to a different manufacture and have to re-buy all new lenses. Granted you could sell your old body and lenses but you would still most likely end up paying more for all new gear again. Since I don’t have any existing lenses, I’m pretty much free to pick whatever I want but once I buy one I better be happy with it.

Both Canon and Nikon have a great lineup of lenses for their bodies. Some say at the low to mid level, Nikon has the best lenses that money can buy without breaking the bank while Canon’s low to mid range lenses might cost a little less but the image and build quality just can’t compete with Nikon at this level. Things more or less even out between the two when when you compare their High end Pro lenses though.

Any ways, the contenders for my research are.. In Canon’s corner we have the XT, XTi and the 30D and in the Nikon’s corner we have the D40, D40x, D80 and D200. All of these are currently available as of this writing. Now there are way too many features to list for each of these cameras so I’m not going to recreate the wheel and cut-n-past them here. A simple Google search for any of these cameras will provide you all the information you will every want to know. I will list the Megapixel rating and retail price for each camera since these tends to be the main things people look at initially. If you spend time shopping around and looking online, you can find these camera below their retail price.

Canon:

• XT: 8.0MP – $699*
• XTi: 10.1MP – $799
• 30D: 8.2MP – $1299

Nikon:

• D40: 6.2MP – $599*
• D40x: 10.2MP – $799
• D80: 10.2MP – $999
• D200: 10.2MP – $1699

NOTE: The Canon XT and the Nikon D40 (*) include a 18-55mm lens, the rest are bodies only. Also, a higher Megapixel (MP) rating makes not a better camera (/Yoda) 🙂

Well this is the end of Part 1, stay tuned for Part 2.